


show me the sun

by abeyance



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Bellamy Blake is a History & Mythology Nerd, Bellarke, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, Imprisonment, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Princess Clarke, Protective Bellamy, Rapunzel Elements, Sexy, Wrongful Imprisonment, bellamy saves clarke, bellarke AU, guard!Bellamy, princess!clarke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-02-10 10:56:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 47,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12910464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abeyance/pseuds/abeyance
Summary: Clarke, the Princess of Arcadia, had been imprisoned in immortal walls by her own mother. Four thousand years after her release date, she is found by those of the new world. In the orders of survival, she is forced to stay in the home of Bellamy Blake, a new guard in a mystery industry. Between adjustment and hatred, Clarke needs to see what exactly is meant with imprisonment.





	1. in this cell i stand

_ CHAPTER I _

  
  
  


_ “The sun dried the leaves like her trust chilled her heart.” _

Two hundred forty-three times it's been, now. She'd been counting; designated a whole extra charcoal just for keeping track in the beginning pages of the book. Two hundred forty-three she had reread those first words of this book.

It was also her  six million, seventy-three thousand, nine hundred eigh th time sitting in that chair,  one million, six hundred sixty-five thousand, four hundred thirty-fifth meal shed eaten in it, and  five thousand, eight hundred forty-sixth while she read while eating in the chair. All together, Clarke had eaten  seven million, six hundred sixty-five thousand, one hundred thirty-four  meals. 

If she was with someone else, they'd probably call her nuts. It's been seven-thousand years after all, so she wouldn't blame them. Maybe she was, but her spite had been too strong of a fuel for her to stop the habit.

_ You deserve this.  _ Her mother told her, all those years ago.  _ You are only receiving the pain you've inflicted on others. _

At first Clarke believed her. Enough to let what she did happen. No matter how mad Clarke got every time she thought about it, which hadn’t been for many years, actually...she made sure to never get mad at herself. Even if she was a sixteen year old with some inhumane power. Or when said  power shattered that vase her father gifted her. 

She rubbed her fingers along the jagged edges of the shard from it that hung around her neck, remembering the distant but vivid memories it held with it.

Her father agreed to keeping their family’s royal tradition and gift Clarke a gold vase for her fifteenth Daylight feast. But when he was shopping, his eyes caught on the vase next to the appropriate one; it was of the same shape but the color was blue and green marble; it reminded him too much his daughter’s eyes to avoid it. Although she was delighted, the pair were the only two in that hall that appreciated the healthy twist in the tradition.

Clarke’s stomach growled and it made her angry; 3,061 years and counting should’ve been enough time to get used to the low rations. The pain of hunger dulled for her centuries ago, but apparently her stomach had yet failed to catch up. 

It’d been a few hundred years since she'd had her last full meal. Her imprisonment was only supposed to be four thousand  years, so that's how much supply her mother’s workers stacked her with. Four thousand years of entertainment and bedding and food. Two years after her original release date, Clarke had started to take note that it may be a little longer than first expected, so she took it upon herself to ration. She portioned more and more each time a year passed. Some days she didn't eat, and others she allowed mere grams. When she first was locked up her only joy was the discovery of the room with art supplies. But she was unaware of the lack of restoration and ran out of paper and canvases within the first few centuries. There were tons and tons of paint left though, even if they were only primary colors. Clarke has had enough experience in the past to mix up new ones. And so after her paper ran out Clarke moved to the blank, concrete walls to turn them into stories.

The library also kept her busy. She had friend there, Viloria, who was the mermaid crocheted into the pillow on her favorite chair. She had book talks with her, and no matter how many time Clarke read and talked about the same book, Viloria never seemed to mind.

She smiled as her eyes ran over another line she loved again. No matter how hard she tried to switch genres, Augustus and Octavia narratives would always be her favorite. She doubted the tales were accurate but they were interesting nonetheless.

_ chang. _

Clarke looked up. For the first time in centuries, she was confused. Being confined to the same routine everyday hardly left much room for uncertainty. Every book was read beyond basic understanding, every room measured corner to corner. There was nothing.

But there was a  _ sound _ .

No matter what, all the sounds in the prison was handled and made because of Clarke. If a pan sizzled she was cooking, if a book fell she dropped it. But that wasn't even what mistook her.

Another  _ clang  _ sounded. Not a  _ thud,  _ not a  _ knock.  _ Not one, but two, three, four;  _ chang, chang, chang, chang. _

There was nothing in here to make that sound. There was no iron. 

Besides one piece she knew of, so close by mere inches, but so far beyond her reach.

_ The outside of this door is made of iron, Clarke. You can't get out. _

Clarke closed her book. 

She started walking at first, but with each clang her feet jumped a little more, until she was in a full sprint. Too much for her incapable body. It wasn't long that the clangs drew out because her heartbeat was thudding her ears and her footsteps were too heavy on the floor.

She’d walked down this hall  seven million, six hundred forty-three thousand, five hundred thirty-five times. She'd bumped into the corner of that dresser four hundred eighty two.  She tripped on that carpet eight hundred seven one (and now eight hundred seven two). She'd cleaned that dresser  eighty-seven thousand, nine hundred ninety-eight .

Touching this door? A whooping twelve. 

The first seven were throughout her first week, and taught Clarke that each time her flesh touched it, the surface turned hotter. The last five were her experiments that told her the temperature rose about sixty degrees each time.

And now, for the first time in six thousand, five hundred twenty-six years, Clarke's face was only one foot away from it. 

Its warmth chilled her face, and she tried to blame her uneven breaths on her sprint.

There was silence. Enough for her to think she imagined it all, that she was indeed going insane. She shook her head in shame; the shame of believing there was indeed someone on the other side. Maybe it was her last novel getting to her; the story of a prince saving the damsel still fresh in her mind.

She turned back to face the prison shed been in for far too long. At the point she was at, Clarke believed going crazy maybe a little nice, healthy even. It would be something new.

Clarke took a step with a controlled breath out. For the first time in centuries she wanted to curse herself out. But as if the floor board was a button, a loud screeching of iron sounded behind her.

The door shook. With being stunned Clarke fell back to the wall next to it, and watched it rattle in the frame. Her teeth shook as much as the door did; she's never heard anything so inhuman. So loud. So terrifying. She never wanted to hear it again.

But it repeated over and over, and Clarke felt her throat clog and eyes blur and sting. She hugged her knees to her chest. She stopped believing in her kingdom’s religion thousands of years ago, but she dragged her eyes to the ceiling, hoping something up there would show her mercy. If that was all what the past seven thousand years were worth, so be it.

Clarke didn't realize she stopped breathing until silence overcame once again, and the burning of her lungs registered. She waiting for it to start up again. ten seconds, thirty. She dreaded it but stayed right where she was all the same.

_ “It's...not doing anything. Even the drill.” _

And despite the fear and sobs and tears, Clarke gasped at the small murmur behind the door. She twisted to her knees and grasped the door’s frame, her cheek pressed against the wall so she could here something, anything else. Another voice… even just that whisper of one… sounded so foreign. 

_ “We may have to get explosives in here. How else are we to collect the artifacts?” _

Clarke couldn't help it. She swallowed painfully and put her lips to the crack, so dangerously close to the door that would burn her lips right off.

“Hello?” she rasped. It's been a few months since she's talked; it usually was to sing. “Im...im in here..” 

Nothing moved, only her own breathing ricocheting back to her face, now warm with the doors heat. 

_ “Did...you hear that?” _ She held her breath as she waited. Clarke squeezed her eyes shut, years wetting her lashes and burning a trail in her cheeks.  _ “Who's there? Show yourself! Open this door!” _

“I'm here. I...I can’t.” The door shook once more.

_ “We demand you identify yourself! This is the P-N-A-C-P and we will press charges if orders are not directly followed!” _

Clarke let out a shuddered breath. Sometimes she let herself imagine what her release day would be like, but this wasn't close to any of her predictions. 

_ “We repeat, we demand you drop any weapons, identify yourself, and open this door!” _

“I-i-its… it's been so long…” she hoarse.

_ “State your name!” _

“I am  Princess Clarke Of Arcadia, first daughter in the fifth generation of the Griffin royal family,” Clarke obeyed, the title running bitterly across her tongue. She didn't know if she was loud enough, but her throat stung nonetheless. 

“Open this door.”

“I can't.” silence. “But there may be… a bottle. On top of the door frame.”she remembered that small clink she heard when she was thrown in here. “If you pour it on the handle, it may lift...lift the spell.” Not a minute later she heard glistening, not much doubt of it being the spell lifting. Her heart no longer thudded in her ears, and Clarke was sure it had stopped beating altogether. But there was no turning of a knob. She second guessed her belief.

“Did… did it work?” How do people talk so much? Why, if it hurt this bad…

Clarke heard a click, and the door - it opened. Slightly. Her hearts thudding returned, but every sound around her drowned out - everything but the door as it paused, only an inch of space opening before it stopped as fast as it seemed to have started. Despite it, a sigh escaped her.

_ “Impossible.”  _ a voice whispered. It was clearer now and she could see the shine of someone's boots. 

“Hello?” she pushed her face further against the crack. The shine of someone's boot multiplied, and she was able to see the first new thing since she found her library.

“Sorry.” the door went to close, but Clarke slipped her left hand into the crack to hold onto the outside. She didn't care about her fingers being crushed or how the iron’s temperature increased under her hand. Clarke kept them there and let her flesh burn.  “We can't let you out.”

“Please,” she said, her throat lump returning. “It's been a very long time.”

“We can't. Sorry again.”

It wasn't until she heard her hand actually start to sizzle that she pulled it out, letting the door close in its place. As the flesh hit her prisons chill, the pain finally caught up to her and she couldn't help the whimper that came up her throat. She bit her lip to silence herself, to distract her brain from the pain of her left hand, but all that happened was her lip starting to bleed in itself. The wetness made her lip slip from under her teeth and she let herself silently scream. She brought her hand to her chest that was pressed against her thighs, and screwed her eyes shut in attempt to avoid looking at what she had just done to herself.

It didn't work. The pain was too unbearable, the thought of being so, so close to leaving, the sight of her scorched hand that was already blistering. Her painting hand.

_ What the  _ hell  _ did she do? _

Her gaping mouth curled into a sob as she took in the blisters, the redness, the black. Her legs shook, from pain, from disappointment, exhaustion, she didn't know. But the uselessness of them failed to hold her up and she fell to her side against the door. Clarke’s shirt’s threads singed against its heat and she coiled away from it a single inch. She stayed there, racking with sobs to the point where air came in gulps on her floor.

Her wall. Not  _ her _ anything. Nothing in here belonged to her. Not one book, not an ounce of paint she'll never be able to use properly again anyway. Not  _ anything. _

Although at this point her sobs shook her legs enough for them to be unstable, Clarke clutched her right hand against the wall two feet behind her. The wall that wasn't hers. Using any strength she could muster within this  _ ancient  _ mental breakdown, she tried to pull it together. Herself together, to stand. But then she just said  _ fuck it _ . It's been  three thousand, four hundred ninety-seven  years since she'd cursed and  six thousand, seven hundred ninety-eight since she's had a breakdown. She could do whatever the damned  _ hell  _ she wanted to.

Because it may not be her floor she just collapsed on, nor the clothes that were burning off her skin, nor the carpet she was crawling to. But the skin  _ was  _ hers, and the sanity she kept for the past several millennia, it  _ only  _ belonged to her. And she could do whatever she wanted with it.

And so all the pride staying in her heart all these years starting roaming. It filled her bloods veins like a virus, traveling, traveling, traveling, draining to her feet. And then it spread and her legs shook no more, sending Clarke straight to her feet like a newly rested horse. And like fresh horses, that wasn't the end of it. 

By the time she stood she was close to her eating area. Clarke looked around with a huff. Her hand still stung - unbearably, in fact. But she released her wrist and let it fall to her side, trembling violently. 

In the corner of the room was a box. She was told it was for health purposes. Clarke rarely needed it; actually, hadn't used it since a few decades into her imprisonment. She got too used to every edge of every surface, her lair mapped out to the expertise of having the capability to building an exact replica. From what she remembered, the box did not hold cures for anything of a bruise. Only some ointments and bandages. If she was perhaps injured any more than that, might as well just die, she supposed.

She opened the top of it to be rather taken aback with the fumes. After coughing out some of the toxins, Clarke focused on the array of contents.

_ Are you  _ serious?

The contents...were everywhere.

Every single bottle spilled, shattered. And every single bandage soiled with the spills. Nothing was useable.

She slammed the lid shut, biting tears back once more. And the Clarke took the box in both hands and chucked it at the wall to her left.

Her biceps turned numb, for they hadn't had a proper workout in lifetimes. But despite her lack of strength the old wood splintered and shards of glass and iron flew.

Clarke felt her hand’s lesion open and screamed. In pain, in anger, in fear, in defeat.

Her right hand, the unburnt, escaped through her braided hair that was going on two weeks. She pulled and pulled; brain straining from the pain between her scalp and burn and new wounds that had started to drip since the shards cut her skin. But overall, it wasn't that physicality of it all that made her scream and sob, but blandly  _ not wanting it anymore _ .

What was the point of it all?  To live here until she went mad, or die from the toxins of eating paint once the food ran out? She heard the man loud and clear. She wasn't allowed out. Because some sort of  _ witchcraft _ her mother framed on her.

All that hope for all those years, endless patience, it was useless. She was  _ bored _ .

Death probably wasn't boring. It would be a new feeling, different from the same series of them she went through on clockwork each day.

So would redecorating. She hadn't moved any of her furniture since her second millennia there. A few years into it she swore not to do it again after bumping into three too many things. But Clarke's hope had shattered today, and that swear went right along with it. 

Her throat was raw as her screams faded to ugly sobs. Clarke opened her eyes that were screwed shut to find herself on her knees, and that sting in her shin was no doubt glass. But it was dull in contrast. 

Clarke stood up before her mind told her to do so. She looked around with a strand of hair making her eye uncomfortable. Yes, redecorating would be nice. 

She pushed her table to the wall, the chair falling beneath it. Grabbing one of the legs with her right hand, she sent it to the remnants of the box. 

Next was her living area. There was that carpet on the way there and she stomped on it. A new arrange of texture, of course.

On the dresser was a vase that had flowers in it when she was placed there. It wasn’t the color of the shard around her neck, so it was ugly and pointless. Maybe its ugliness would balance out with the ugliness of the mantle and everything on it. She threw it there to test it out. Everything exploded of a sort around where the vase hit.

No, still ugly. But better. 

She flipped the cushion chair and loveseat. The empty jar of a candle looked better against the wall. She hadn't looked in the mirror in years, so the frame looked fine in the hallway. 

Her bedroom was that of a cot in an empty room, but the hay from the mattress looked better spread across the floor, so she tore it open and did so. 

Clarke made it to her library next. Maybe she should've gone to her paint first, but she figured adding color later would feel like the finishing touch. 

Piles and stacks and shelves...oh, there were so many. But she’d  _ read _ all of them. so really, there was none. 

She hated how messy the books seemed, so she spread them out harshly. With her feet. 

The shelves were to be dusted, so she swiped off the books. It was harder than she thought, being one handed and all. 

Despite her precise balance, Clarke found herself having fallen from the ladder in an uncomfortable disarray pillow of books. She turned her head to find the one she had read the least because she hated most, and threw it at a shelf for wasting her time. 

It felt great to throw things, actually. She picked up another, and then another, and soon piles at a time. The flapping of the pages were satisfying. New sounds.

Soon though, she got tired of throwing books. She wanted something else to move.

And so Clarke took the end table that had a long-while-out-of-oil-oil-lamp, mostly there for decoration. It was going to be the  _ most _ satisfying, the sound of the wood and glass together - 

“Hey!”

_ Shatter, thud. _

She watched as the lamp’s sides broke apart and slid across the floor with widened eyes.

“Are you the one from the door?” Deep, but curious.

Clarke kept her eyes at the floor as she turned to face the voice. There were pages, and pieces of furniture scattered, and  _ did she do this? _

But she rose her eyes to find shiny boots in the doorway. And that connected to pants, and a bulky shirt with  _ a lot _ of odd textures and bumps, and a face.

The skin was dark in the most calming way, as were the eyes of this young man who stood before her. His black hair was slicked back, showing his expression of uncertainty. Clarke wasn't disappointed that this was the first face other than her own that she'd seen in seven thousand years. 

Her throat was still raw  and her lungs empty from her events, so her snarky response came out broken and silent. “Do you see anyone else here?”

She couldn't tell if that was a smile or fear playing at the corner of his lips. Maybe they were fighting each other. But it was gone before she could decide, and he took a breath as stuttered as hers.  “I didn’t feel it was right leaving you here.”

And since a long while she wanted to smile about something that wasn't a memory. 

“That was nice of you.” she found him glancing around the room before meeting her face again with a curt nod. She took the pause after wards for a signal that they should leave. 

“Right.” she stepped over the messes as gracefully and as casually as she could. Clarke only paused when she was next to the man, his strange contraption in his hand giving them space between each other. She caught the name tag on his breast, engraved with  **_Cadet B. Blake_ ** . And then Clarke trailed to his face to find the first new constellation of stars she'd seen in millennials. His freckles made his cheekbones ever so soft and contoured at the same time. It's be wonderful to paint. 

She caught herself think he might be looking at her, too, to see anything that might be similar to what complexion she found. But then Clarke realized he probably was looking at all her endless bleeding sources.

And so Clarke turned and walked into the hallway without another thought. Except on thing. 

“I'll be right back. Please, wait one second.” she turned to Cadet B. Blake and said, running off without risking the response. she returned with the book she was reading, her favorite, and the copy of Viloria from the pillow’s back pocket. They were one of the only untouched things, remarkably.

She half expected Cadet B. Blake to have gone by the time she returned, although it was only a few minutes. But he was leaning against the painting she did of how she remembered the sun on the wall when she returned. 

Clarke followed his eyes to her walls, to her paintings. some had chipped a little, but everything was covered just the same. She stood in front of his view to get his attention. 

He looked down at the contents in her hands, lingering on her trembling one for more than a second before looking at her directly. “Ready?”

All Clarke could give was a nod, because she was ready, but absolutely terrified. 

Cadet B. Blake caught on by the time the walked to the door, him leading her by her elbow through the clutter as she stared absently ahead. She hasn't touched anyone in seven thousand years. It was hard to concentrate. 

Clarke froze in front of the door, feeling Cadet B. Blake’s hands rest on her bony shoulders.  She was in the same exact spot hours before, and it didn't end well. At all. 

“What's wrong?” she looked at the hand on her shoulder, and then to his face behind her. Clarke didn't say anything, but just turned back to the door. She didn't know what was wrong, either. With a deep breath, she replied. 

“I cant open the door.”

“What?” the hands disappeared from her shoulder, and Cadet B. Blake appeared in front of her. “What do you mean, you can't open it? Are we trapped?” she almost wanted to laugh. She held up her hand. 

“ _ I  _ can't. Physically. It burns me.” his gaze shifted to her hand and it rested there. Again. 

“Okay.” he turned to the knob, ghosting his own hand over it to test the temperature. And then she graced it. Clarke’s heart started leaping, her gaze sharp on his hand. It twisted, and she smiled openly, mercifully, as Cadet B. Blake guided her to the opening by her shoulder blade. He ducked down to her ear to whisper something, and she turned her head so that her cheek was close to his, practically touching. She felt him suck in a breath and release it hot down her neck. 

“ _ I’m sorry.” _ and then Clarke’s vision exploded in colors to nothing at all as she hit the floor outside her prison, unconscious.


	2. in this white room i imagine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke has bad couple of days.

  
  


CHAPTER TWO  
  
  


The first thing Clarke noticed was the smell. It wasn't stuffy. 

It caught her by surprise and it wasn’t that short of a time before her chest racked in coughs at the difference. It felt so strong, it burned her nostrils. Clark went to bring a fist to her mouth only to find she couldn't. She tried once more.

Clarke's eyes, which were previously too heavy to open, blinked blindingly. Her eyelids moved to reveal whiteness. All whiteness. 

_ Was it a dream? _

Plenty of times Clarke had fallen asleep reading, waking up with a book across her forehead. But her paint wasn't that white. It wasn't as clean as this…

She lowered her eyes. The white kept on going, all until…a crease. There was a crease in the white, a crisp of darkness amongst the bright. 

So then she glanced around some more, her breath a little more uneven than it was before. It wasn't her seven million, five hundred ninety-eight thousand, three hundred thirty-fourth time seeing the same library or kitchen or box of a bedroom. It was her first time seeing it. Something new.

And Clarke was scared.

She always imagined what the time would be like, the sight shed see once she was released. If the colors contrasted differently if the smell was the same bloody scent she left behind.

But the smell was nothing besides a faint odor Clarke couldn’t recognize, and everything was blank.

The crease was a separation between the floor and the wall, which were decorated with green dancing lines on a board of shiny blackness. She watched each wave go higher and higher as her heart started to beat against her ribs until it started blinking red.

And that was when Clarke started to thrash, disgracefully pulling against these metal restraints that restricted her. Her left hand stung and she looked down to find it wrapped with an itchy cloth as white as the walls, but now seeping red, staining it. 

Her clouded ears recalled a creak and footsteps. Hands not of skin pulled her hair close to her scalp - which felt looser, now that she took note of it - to arch her neck. Figures of blue surrounded her tear-clouded vision and clear box with an abnormally colored snake attached lowered closer, closer, closer to Clarke's mouth. Clarke tried to lift her pelvis but another bar kept her from it. She tried to turn her head away, but soon she was breathing from it, and the tug on her hair dissolved into the tug of unconsciousness.

 

+

 

Her sleep was again dreamless, feeling more unnatural than the other. Unless that second attempt after awakening was a dream...But she doubted it. 

It occurred as she awoke the apparent third time, with the two round shadows at her door’s window. She had escaped her mother’s prison just to be placed in another. Or it was another of her mothers, which she wouldn't see as an unlikely clause. 

One way or another, she was trapped. Again. But with this time, much less to do.

Looking at the wall wasn't very amusing. If it were any other color besides white, she’d perhaps have a different opinion. Clarke would be able to imagine what colors it took to make that color, how many more colors could be made from it, what others it would contrast well with. What she would be able to paint with the color. 

But the color was white, the color of blankness, and her painting hand ruined. 

She got tired of sleeping fairly quickly. 

The pull of her scalp echoed her nerves. Clarke's head thudded slightly more than usual. She ached for her book, the words she had memorized tugging at her from miles away. She recited some lines in her head. For then it would have to do. 

It was only a few minutes that she thought she would actually die. Seven millennia of nothing lived up to this; her reward of patience and hope being lying in a pearly bed and restrained like a dangerous, mythical beast. It was silly to think deeply about it, an immortal dying of boredom, but made sense all the same. 

Clarke acknowledged the beeping sound as well. She didn't know where exactly it was coming from, but the box beside her cot was making consecutive lines that reminded her of the steep mountains her land once had; how her father being the Emperor was able to bring her one day to ‘ _ admire the tree’s frost,’  _ as he had said for her sake. They did admire the frost, but also scaled the mountains’ sides and hiked until their feet were sore from the cold. Her maids had told her to be careful that night as they prepared her for bed, to beware of the frost’s bite if she had gotten one step closer to it. They said nothing ever about that travel. The only being Clarke had confessed to was Viola and the walls of her sleeping quarters back at her prison where she had painted all the things they saw that day. 

Along the hour Clarke had tried to match her breathing with the beeping perfectly, but it never seemed to work and really just made her frustrated. She stopped. 

A piece of Clarkes hair had fallen in front of her vision somewhere between her efforts. She tried blowing it out but it seemed to always float back where it was previously. She didn't appreciate the tickle it left on her nose, or how the strands seemed like a different blond from her own in the unfamiliar lighting. She didn't appreciate that she was pale, even in contrast with the white  _ everything, _ from her lifetimes spent away from the sun. she didn't like  _ any  _ of it.

Clarke’s eyes studied the ceiling until they burned and invented new colors in the blankness. Her ears pounded between her headache and heartbeat, and her hand started to get a slight soreness from her absentmindedly running her hands over the cloth under her. Clarke's head strained. Her tongue was dry and tasted of her mouth, any type of flavor long gone since her last meal. 

It had been at least a day. 

She focused on the ceiling, trying to construct a scene from one of her books she’d be able to bring to life. But it was too blank. There was nothing surrounding her, no color, no inspiration. She hadn’t seen something so empty in so long. It messed with her head.

Clarke closed her eyes, tightly enough to see small eruptions of colors. She took a blue and a pink and an orange and painted a flower on the insides her eyelids, followed by enough to make a meadow. The grass, although blandly green and yellow with dryness was vibrant. Her sky had milked itself from clouds. In the distance, a cottage.

But the images started to blur. One flower became two or three, the cottage became a brown stone. Before the blue bled into the green of the grass, her eyes snapped open. There was an odd heat - it ran through her arm, and she pulled her blurry focus to it. All Clarke was able to make out was a string...it was thick...and cloths that she only then felt on her forearm. Clarke went to jolt, to somehow escape this feeling like she was bleeding out to in, but everything was heavy, even the air. 

And once again, she floating back asleep.

 

+

 

It was different when she woke up the next time. Her hair wasn’t on her face and she wasn’t on a cot that reminded her of her least favorite cushions back her family’s palace. 

Clarke's head wasn’t sore either, but rather her arms and tailbone. Her ankles and feet were cold as well, and her whole torso was unnaturally tight. 

Once again, Clarke was restrained. 

Her lids were heavy but she lifted them anyway, wanting to see her new cell.

She met eyes with a person.

He was odd. His hair was white, but not as much as walls. But his jacket did match, and his countenance may as well had fit in with the category, too. Cold. Uncomforting. Tense. 

His hands were neatly crossed on a shiny table. Hers were strapped to her hard chair’s sides. 

The man smiled, his skin easily folding at the creases. She didn't put in their effort to lift her head.

“I'm going to ask you a question,” he started. His voice matched the room’s heavy air. “If you cooperate, we get answers and you get...well, we can work that out as it concludes.”

“Who is we?” she drawled. Clarke's throat already burned. 

“We ask the questions. You answer. How about a practice round; what’s your name?”

She waited a few seconds out of spite. Staring at the tabled edge, she answered. “Clarke...Griffin.” the tasteless flavor on her tongue from before setting on bitterness as she formed her name. 

“Ah!” Clarke nearly jumped as he leaned back in his chair. She flicked her gaze to his face. He didn’t deserve eye contact yet. “See, that’s how easy this is. Now, can we promise to tell the full truth, for now on?”

“I am commonly known as Princess Clarke of Arcadia, first daughter in the fifth generation of the Griffin royal family.” If the truth was the case, might as well give him it. 

The man replaced his position with his hands crossing. She set her eyes on them and decided they weren’t worth remembering so she could draw them later.

“We would like to know what exactly you mean as  _ commonly _ , Ms. Griffin, since I have yet to hear the title outside of storybooks.”

“Who is  _ we. _ ” she found a small ember in her tone and spit it out.

“What we are trying to do here, Ms. Griffin is evaluating those seemingly unfit for our community. We are asking you these questions civically, and expect you answer them in the same manner. If you fail to do that, we will take further precautions.”

Clarke only heard a faint hum above them and she remained silent.

“Why were you locked up?”

“My bull-shit of a mother.”

The man sighed. She wanted to smile but was found unable.

He continued, a little more on edge; “What exactly did you  _ do _ to lead her to make that decision?”

The hum filled the soundlessness once more. Her calf tickled.

“I have an itch.” she felt the man's eyes on her, but he didn't move. She moved her gaze higher. It seemed like he was waiting for her to answer his question, but her calf was itchy. “ _ I have an itch.” _

“Answer the question.” she stared. Clarke counted to five before breaking it to look down at her uninjured hand. She gave it a yank and had to bite back the hiss that climbed her throat. “Please stop refraining, or we will need to enforce the precautions.”

Her eyes snapped back up to his and Clarke suddenly felt the ember from before return. It was a spark now. She gave her wrist another jolt, aware of how easily the cold, hard bands cut into her skin. 

“Show a little  _ courtesy _ , perhaps unchaining me like I'm not a rabid  _ beast, _ and maybe I’ll answer your  _ questions _ .” She kept her eyes on his as she yanked once, twice, on her other hand.

She felt the skin break apart, and warmth trickle down her fingertip. Clarke jerked and pulled more. And more. And more. 

She felt tears, she saw how they blurred her vision of the man as she stayed glaring at him. It was from the pain she welcomed. 

Clarke stopped. A tear retreated down her cheek the same time her blood made a sound as drips hit the floor. 

Calmly, like it was casual, he remained focused on Clarke's face, the salty tears burning her scraped, desperate expression, and touched a finger to his ear. 

“Acquire Reinforcements to Prisoner Three-One-Nine.”

_ Prisoner _ . Ah. So her speculations were proven right.

It was seconds later that the door behind the man with the white hair burst open. Men, dressed much like the young man (the son of a  _ shit _ ) who trapped her in the confinement rushed it; their clothes were much darker, though.

The pressure on her wrists and ankles and torso lifted. She was able to breath better, something Clarke just figured was affected due to the weight of the new air she was breathing. They didn’t seem to care about her injuries since she was pulled up and forward before she was given the chance to rebound her feet or get some sort of gait under her.  Her ankle rolled as she was dragged through the door, but her vision was once again black before she got to see what was on the opposite side of it. 

 

+

 

Being the number of times she had been put to sleep, Clarke was getting rather bored of it. She didn’t mind the sleeping part, really. Even if she woke with a massive headache; most of the time the only thing she was able to do following waking up was to fall asleep of her own accord, anyway. 

It was just the execution. A gentle, taunting prick and then blackness. Awaken, screw up in one way or another again, and repeat. 

Why not a punch in the head? Sure, maybe it would hurt like hell, but a  _ new feeling _ . One to add to her list that was, these days, growing rather quickly. 

She stared at the ceiling that time. She ran out of ideas on what to do a couple knock-outs ago. All Clarke was able to do at this point was stare.

Her gaze absentmindedly flicked to her injured hand. Clarke saw they had only bothered to change her bandages, but left out cleaning the crusted river of blood that made its own trail down her fingertips and in the creases of her nails. She looked at her other hand. Amongst the simple contrast of the white cloths, her wrist was decorated with a bright bracelet. It was orange and had small writing she couldn't make out. But there were bigger ones above that were more than likely purposely big. 

 

**_Level of Hostility: FIREBIRD_ **

 

Firebird. What an odd combination. But in ways, it made sense.

She had something to do, finally. Clarke thought the orange from the bracelet and blood from her finger and made the colors into a falcon of vibrant warmth, with wings of friendly, fierce fire.

 

_ Firebird _ .

 

+

 

Clarke was awoken in her sleep.

For how much she had been sleeping recently, in the past seven thousand years, really, she shouldn't have complained. But Clarke was pissed, generally, mainly because she was in the  _ place _ .

Clarke had no clue what the place really specified as yet. 

But her room filled with light, nevertheless; every few hours she would be succumbed by darkness because of the absence of it. She believed it was some sort of sleeping arrangement. 

It was in the time her eyes were failing to adjust to the change of brightness that her restrainments lifted and she was hauled to her feet. Clarke's legs buckled, but the hands gripping her biceps dragged her like she was walking just as good as them. As Clarke gave into her weight, she developed a small pity for the possessors of the hands, although she knew her weight didn’t equal more than a few small stacks of flour after the centuries of rations.

Clarke diagnosed a pull in her neck as she tried to lift it to see anything but the inside of her cell as the hands pulled her out of it. Her eyes were kept on the floor, her feet out of sight as they were left behind her, useless. The floor she was dragged on was white, like the marble of the entrance of her family’s palace. But it wasn’t as pretty to look at.

She kept her eyes as far up as she could see. The hall that was in front of Clarke was long, too dark to see besides a few meters in front of her. 

The walls were made of bars on one side. The other, doors. She assumed her cell was a part of the door side. 

Dark shadows rested on the bars, and it made Clarke feel exposed. She wasn’t a steed show the Emperor ordered.

The hands must have sensed her fear, her uncomfort, because they, yet solemnly, obviously started moving towards the barred walls.

Was she going in one of them?

A dungeon. She was going to be held it a dungeon, like those traitors in her kingdom.

A silhouette of a hand reached out through one of them. When she came close enough for it to grab her, the people dragging her stopped. It grabbed her shoulder. 

Hot breath whispered across her ear.

“ _ React.” _

Warmer than the breath, heat exploded in her side. She rolled her head to it to see dark seeping her clothes at her hip, and not but a few inches away, a knife. 

It was small - not even an inch, maybe - but that inch of the blade had blood, her blood, on it.

She moved her eyes up to her attacker, to find wide eyes, bluer than her own. “ _ React!” _

Frankly, Clarke couldn't find the energy to. She had enough pain in the past days to make up for her years of solitude, and this was nothing but a dull addition to it. 

But she let out a whimper. She had no idea what it was from.

Everything exploded at once. 

The hands pulled her back the same time a squeak sounded. Clarke cried from how cold the floor was, and she could've sworn someone muttered,  _ Good. Just like that. _

The darkness was filled with red light, so unnatural Clarke felt the pull to sob. But a taunt, warm hand pushed against her side, and the wound stung. Her face cuts once again burned when salty rivers touched them.

Voices were speaking, shadows were hovering, and heat and pain and calming warmth that did not calm her at  _ all,  _ no, it was  _ too much too much too much. _

She sobbed. A hand clasped her head and rubbed it, perhaps to sooth, but it made her cry even more. 

Clarkes back was wet. She didn’t want to know what it was from but knew nevertheless. 

Hands grasped her ankles, her arms, and one kept still at her stomach. It wasn’t harsh. Maybe gentle. Was that thumb at her ankle moving? She recalled that time when she was thirteen and her powers made her ill. Only her father came to visit her, the only being in the castle that did not see her powers for the dangers all supposed they held. He would rub her ankle with his thumb, draw shapes on her skin. 

But her father was not with her. 

Her mother took him away.

Something tickled her face. Hair. it disappeared.  

Thin fingers brushed her cheek. Her vision was a blur, nothing out of the ordinary these days. She bit her lip as she was lifted and placed onto something. Clarke found a scab there, and it hurt to bite on it. Dammit. 

Clarke didn’t process much else. Darkness took her again, as she was on her back, voices, and footfalls echoing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Clarke. Shes been having a rough couple of days.
> 
> Hey loves! sorry this chapter took so long to geet out. i wanted to work out a clear plot before posting something that would mess it up.
> 
> i PROMISE we will have some bellarke next chapter. i was actually going to add the next scene to this chapter, but felt it was a good place to stop. So hopefully my next chapter will come soon.
> 
> How do you guys like it so far? what do you want to see? any speculations? what was this whole stabby-nonsense about? leave your thoughts!
> 
> hope to see you all soon! thank you for reading 
> 
> xoxo


	3. curtains that contain dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke wakes up in yet another cell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: some mention of suicidal thoughts.

CHAPTER III

  
  
  


The next time Clarke woke up, it was different again. She wasn’t in a chair or a cot, but something soft, and warm. 

She still had a headache, though. That was still there. 

Along with other things, Clarke noted, like the fullness of her bottom lip that wasn't there before, or the pulsing in her side.

Behind her eyelids was yellow, a yellow tone, and it made her open her eye. In front of her were a quilt like she had never seen and a floor of unusual beige texture.

Across the quilt - it was dark blue, contrasted with smooth, gray walls - was light. Yellow light that glowed, and when she ran her fingers over it, warm... _ Sun. _

Sunlight. 

Clarke’s head whipped to the wall with a window - ignored the bite at her neck - where the sun was oozing in. The  _ sun. _

_ Sun, sun, sun. _

It was covered by a thin curtain but defeated any purpose of keeping the light out. She threw the quilt off, desperate to move the curtain, to let any sunlight come in, no limitations, no barriers. The sun should not be treated like a prisoner.

Cool air bit at her exposed thighs. 

Clarke slung her feet over the soft cushions to place them on the beige floor. At first, it was soft, but the texture was scratching her knees as she fell before she had time to cherish it. 

She kept going. Not letting her legs that had given out stop her, nor the burning in her side. Speaking of, it was uncomfortable and itchy. But the sun was close, so close, and she just wanted to see it…

“No!” thick fingers grasped her small shoulders and pulled Clarke back. Her fingers were ghosting the curtain, so, so close… but not anymore. “You can’t -”

Clarke turned her head to look at the being who pulled her away from the light. 

She caught herself looking at the same brown eyes of the young man who rescued her. Not wasting a second, she shrugged him away. The man sat back on his heels, looking at her with wide eyes as his hands dropped beside him.

She breathed, shaking her head the slightest. “What the seven hells…-” 

“You can’t look outside.” he sounded breathless. Actually looking at him now, more in disbelief than intent, she realized his hair flung a few droplets as his head moved to the side. Like he managed to dry everything but his curls after walking through a rainfall. Cadet B. Blake glanced between her and the window. “I’m sorry, but you...can’t.”

_ I’m sorry _ . In her first prison she couldn’t leave, and then she couldn’t move, and now...she couldn’t even look out a window. Might as well be her third.

“You really have a habit of apologizing before  _ imprisoning _ people, don’t you,” Clarke spat at him. His lips formed a thin line, but Cadet B. Blake didn’t do much as stare. 

“This isn't a prison.” 

“Then let me look at the  _ sun _ .” Cadet B. Blake cringed, his eyes incredibly soft as she stared, waiting for his answer. It was another moment before he did.

“I want to, trust me -”

“So  _ let me,”  _ Clarke cut off.

“But if you want to  _ live,”  _ his voice rose _. “ _ And not have this building  _ raided,  _ you  _ cannot  _ open that curtain.”

Clarke blinked and took the silence to take in the room she had been settled in. She had expected things in the world to be different from the last time she saw it, but this…

The walls were smooth and gray. They were bare, save the surfaces pushed against it. On the wall opposite of the window, there was something she could only address as a door from the handle, but could very well be another contraption. 

Her fingers brushed the floor beneath her. That was what was confusing her the most - what was it?

Clarke's eyes retreated to his. 

“What…” she swallowed the rest of the sentence she was going to say, mostly because it was rather a jumble of words with no coherence to each other.

“I know, you’re probably confused.” He paused. “really…”  she glanced away. “Confused.”

She positioned herself on her knees, suddenly aware of her bare legs as they rubbed against the itchy floor. Clarke hadn't been dressing like a princess in years and years and didn't really mind it, but… she was feeling a bit exposed. It was apparent the clothing has changed, more or less what is expected of both men and women. She acknowledged that much from the tight, plain shirt that Cadet B. Blake wore and how he didn't seem to mind with her ankles, or shins, or  _ thighs  _ on bland display, but...still.

Clarke pulled the big shirt, that looked similar to Cadet B. Blake’s, over her knees, looking down.

A blanket was placed in front of her instead. 

Hesitantly she reached her hand out, grasping the knitted fabric in her uninjured hand. Not but a few fingertips away was a large, dark one, sprinkled with freckles, starting to pull away from it. 

Clarke retained her focus to him as she wrapped it around herself. He gave her a moment.

“Let's get started with names. I’m Bellamy. You’re Clarke, correct? Clarke Griffin.” She mostly ignored him, seeing if his face’s freckles would connect into constellations. If she were to paint a line from the bridge of his nose to under his eyes and then connect that to one on his cheekbone…

Clarke abandoned her vision, looking down and her hand. The fabric was the same white fabric, it was clean. She almost felt guilty about how much she probably had wasted them. But then Clarke remembered it was their fault, it was their fault she wouldn’t ever paint again, and it was -

“You manipulated me.” she could see him move in her peripheral. “I can see that now.”

“I didn’t want to,” Bellamy responded, rather... softly. Clarke continued.

“I should’ve seen it - I did, until you showed up. It was too good to be true.” she tightened the blanket around her shoulders due to a sudden chill in the air.

Frankly, Clarke had no idea what to do. She always planned her release would be full of a  _ the immortal princess has been found and released _ ambiance. Like the Rapunzel story. But she was in a place she didn't know, in a time she didn't know, with a man she didn't know, besides the discernible fact that he had trapped her. Twice.

She didn't know anything. She was  _ screwed _ .

Clarke didn’t know how long she sat there, wondering why she hadn’t given up while ago, why she rationed to stay painfully hungry rather than not have any pain at all. She didn't know, she didn’t understand, she was s _ tupidly hopeful. _

When she looked up, finally, Clarke was alone.

 

+

 

Clarke looked around.  At first, she spent a haze in the same position Bellamy had left her, all until her feet numbed and she crawled to the wall next to the window. It was a pathetic amount of time that she rested there, her back against the wall, looking at the light shining through the curtains fabric. 

The more she stared, the more she was convinced. What bad would it be, opening the curtain? All she wanted to see was the sun. After that, to the hell’s with surviving, or the building raided. She lived long enough, and this man deserved nothing but dying right along with her. 

But then Clarke remembered snow. She remembered how cold yet beautiful it was, and the whiteness it covered the earth with. Almost like it came in for a while to purify the lands again, just for awhile, before the chaos re-instilled. Her mother was always setting the reality for her; that the only reason there was peace during those long nights was because people were either freezing or starving. But Clarke was a child; even at seventeen, she would simply look out the window by her fireplace and see a snowy owl, or a white rabbit's tracks, and settle into her world of solitude.

The light coming in from the window was too yellow for it to be winter. Unless winter didn’t even come around anymore.

She had gotten up to walk around, testing her stance after days of others walking for her.

Things had changed. A lot. 

It’s not like she imagined they didn’t. Surely, some things  _ must have  _ changed, otherwise, mankind had been rather lazy for the past seven thousand times.

But the paintings.

She had painted every day for seven millennia, and  _ still _ , she was nowhere near to what these paintings looked like.

Of course, Clarke hadn’t had much practice with constructing faces. Sure, fictional, but the company in her prison lacked, and painting her own face upset her. 

But the  _ detail. _

It was impeccable. The artist caught every pore, every background detail on a canvas no bigger than her hand. The quality of paint had surely developed. Compared to this, Clarke was a seven-thousand-year-old child.

She recognized Bellamy in the painting. He was smiling, the bastard, with a woman next to him Clarke didn’t know whether or not to call a girl.

Her hair was dark, darker by his; but only by a small fraction. The girl's skin was fair, and her eyes - 

Clarke recognized those eyes.

The proprietor had been the one who stabbed her. 

Her side pulsed in reminder.

She was  _ screwed _ . Trapped in a makeshift prison with both her attacker and kidnapper and they might as well be partners. Was she being held for some reward? Were they holding her until the highest bidder came along? 

She needed to leave. Clarke needed to go, far away - if that even still existed. She doesn't care about imprisonment, about being injured, Clarke saw it as a minor inconvenience. But being  _ sold  _ was a different story, it was a different line she would not even risk staying on the edge of.

Thinking of it more deeply now, being sold was probably already achieved. Who knew, her mother may have sold her back when she was three, to a marriage to an Emperor well more than double her age, before her powers started to surface. Clarke wouldn’t doubt it. It would not be the first time her mother had crushed her wish well before she knew she had even had it.

She rose from her hovering stance over the small paintings on the drawers. At least that hasn't changed. She wants to open them, to see what these people may be hiding. 

Not far to the left of the drawers was a door. It was white. 

The tendency to open it overcame her, to  _ see  _ if she could open it, or if it was just another locked door like those in her past. Clarke stared at the knob for a while. It was another to-do, not-to-do situation out of the countless that have been put in front of her.

The blanket was making her hot and the tense knits weren’t the most comfortable on her sharp shoulders. Clarke wanted to let it slide off desperately, not used to heat after being at the same temperature for such a long time. But she kept it tightly around her shoulders, the long excess dragging heavily behind her as she walked around.

The friction was going to kill her. She needed it off.

Blandly opening the door, so unexpectedly, too - it would cause an alarm. Her breathing a little offset, she raised her fist and knocked - twice. Before she heard any response, her fist was tucked into the opening of her safety blanket, to her chest.

Now that she was listening to the other side, she could hear rustling, faintly. a creak, groan of a bed, maybe, but no response.

With now a now trembling wrist, she knocked three more times.  The creaking had stopped before she had, the person most than likely in their decided position, but the rustling had continued.

The rustling slowed.

She felt still to knock again, but Clarke did it anyway - twice. When the noise tics had stopped completely she raised to knock again. But the surface of the door moved away before she could meet with it.

Bellamy stood there, his waves now dried into curls.his damn eyes were wide like they were when he left her to herself. 

“You okay?” Clarke peeled her eyes away from him to take the chance to look at further surroundings. The still smooth walls - the color lighter, though, and shiny, puffy chairs that she wanted to read in. the floor matched the room she had been in, with the bed.

She looked at her left shoulder and down at the blanket. 

“I - I’m...hot.” She averted her gaze but roamed over his shoulders.

“I was wondering how long you’d last with that blanket. It’s the middle of July, for the Hell’s sake.” Clarke didn’t say anything. She detected Bellamy thinking. “We - I, uh… I can get you something, then. Just - I’ll be right back.”

She nodded solemnly and closed the door, softly. She could feel the weight of his hand still embraced on the other side.

Clarke played with her hands as she waited, seated at the end of the bed. It felt different from her bed back at her palace, but it was too long ago for the distinct compare. But better than her worn-in cot. That wasn’t difficult.

She looked at the window again. Under the blanket, she now avoided the patches of light that the sun coated the room with. It made her sick thinking of any more heat.

Her hand hurt. Playing with her hands consisted of fidgeting with the cloth wrapping it, which she probably shouldn’t have been doing. The friction in between had it burning, and her palm was itchy. But the thought of scratching it made her sicker than sitting in the heat. Clarke gagged.

It was just  _ there _ . She couldn’t do anything about the pain, just bite back and hope it numbed out. She would forget about it until she remembered again as if her nerves only worked when she gave enough effort to realize they do.

The lacerations she had earned had scabbed over as well. They all made her face tight and uncomfortable to move, like any may start bleeding as soon as she lifted an eyebrow. It made her feel as trapped as she was in this room, literally trapped in her own skin. 

Everywhere,  _ everywher _ e, Clarke was trapped. She couldn’t get away from it. At this point, she would be able to start a game. Or start another tally to go along with her hundreds. 

The only problem with that idea was that Clarke had no idea where to start.

Because she had come to the conclusion that she was trapped countlessly. At birth, she was trapped in life as a princess; at five, she was trapped with a ruthless power and the fear of herself and everyone around her from it; at eighteen, she was trapped in a situation, not able to go anywhere but the wrong path, that nothing but  _ trapped _ her in a prison. 

Should the prison count as multiple tallies? One seemed a little understated for the seven thousand years she was trapped in  _ that  _ one. Trapped. The word was in every knick and corner of her corner of her mind. Trapped. Trapped.  _ Trapped _ .

Clarke calmed her breathing.  _ Not now, not in a place with a person who had hurt you before. _

She settled, as soon as the door swung open. The sound made her jump. 

“Okay, I have a couple clothes that may fit you. I don’t know, though -” Clarke turned. That voice did not belong the Bellamy. It belonged to a girl. 

Clarke’s stab wound stung as she looked into green eyes, like the ones in the paintings. The eyes that were greener than her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we finally have some bellarke, yay!
> 
> I'm going to see how ahead i get with chapter this week, but i am thinking that i will be updating this every sunday.
> 
> also: please look at this as a futuristic world rather than present one. the time Clarke is from is closer to our own past than bellamy's.
> 
> please please PLEASE leaves kudos and comments, it brings me so much joy:)


	4. in this mind she's struck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> those little "this iPhone's Storage is Full" and "This Device is Overheated" notifications in character form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this is late. *in the spongebob imagination voice* procraaasssttiiinaatiooonn

CHAPTER IV

  
  
  
  


The girl paused steps from the door. She had a pile of what Clarke assumed clothes in her arms, of assorted colors she had never seen, that she wanted to paint with, but she couldn’t think about that. Because the girl  _ smiled _ .

“Oh, sorry. I should introduce myself, you don’t have a clue who I am. I’m -”

“I have a bit of a clue. You stabbed me.” The smile faltered fatally. Clarke could see she was less of a woman now, too girlish to represent anything more than a young adult.

The girl took a step back a beat before Clarke rocked on her feet. Her eyes were expressive, flickering constantly as she fought for a response. 

“I-I didn't want to.” Unlikely bellamy, it was as if she was saying it like she was the one in pain, her voice cracking. Clarke straightened.

“That seems like the phrase of the day.” the girl looked back through the doorway desperately with worrisome eyes. In heart beats, Bellamy appeared at the edge of the door frame. Clarke looked between them. “ I want to know what is going  _ on _ .” 

Bellamy pushed off the door frame and took the clothes out of the girl’s arms. Her eyes followed the back of his head, eyebrows dropped but eyes full, as he walked over to Clarke. Bellamy held out the clothes infront of her. Clarke's eyes lifted from the clothes to his face.

“Take these, and then go get changed. We will explain what we can once you do.” keeping eye contact, she took the clothes in one hand. He dipped his chin. When he turned to leave, the girl behind them was already gone.

 

+

 

The clothes were weird, but comfortable. She was given a plain, thin,  purple long sleeve, the color of flowers she would admire outside her bed chamber’s windows. The pants were not much more detailed, and were of thicker material and a lighter gray than this chamber’s walls.

It’s been a long while since someone  had reestablished her place in society’s dress code, but it still felt weird. Walking around in whatever fashion she felt like in her prison was a relief, and she had gotten used to her body so close to the space around her, but she wasn't around other people. Including those who had attacked and kidnapped her.

She debated whether to walk out on her own or see how long it took them to get her instead. Her second option arrived before she was able to decide, though, and and the door opened a measure as she stayed on the bed, eyeing it.

“Are you... done?” Bellamy’s voice stuttered. Clarke swallowed her breath. 

“Yes.”

Bellamy slid into the room and looked at Clarke, who sat criss-crossed on the bed, and then back at where he came from. With a huff, he pulled the girl in, who kept her head down.

Clarke looked at the quilt in front of her. 

“Listen,” bellamy started. “I -  _ we _ \- completely understand why you don’t trust  us. There's no reason that tells you that you should. But let us explain, tell you what this is about, and you can make your opinion on that.”

She sat still. He took it as a disagreement, Clarke supposed, because he sat a foot away from her at the end of the bed. She saw him incline his head as he added,”Okay?”

As her answer, Clarke tucked her knees to her chest. When bellamy gestured to the girl in the doorway, she sat opposite of him, clearly a bit uneasy. Clarke kept her focus at the space between the two.

With a breath, bellamy began; “Let's start with where you are. This is my apartment, in northern Ton D-C. Now, do you know where you’re from?” she didn't say anything, Clarke knew the tactic; answer questions to ask questions. He sighed and continues with her lack of a response. 

“We brought you here from the faculty in the city. It’s called Mount Weather; they are in charge of cleaning up things from before the war.” he took a breath, letting that first part sink in for her. She gratified it. So much information, all in such a small sentence.  _ War. Mount Weather. TonDC. Faculty. War… _

She scanned her memory for any sort of clue as to where on the earth she may be. The thought of not even being  _ on _ earth, that her mother sent her into the night sky, she didn’t throw it away. She very well might have.  _ Probably  _ had. But it only helped if she could try. 

Her memory was useless. The images of a  _ past life, _ the life _ before _ imprisonment, it was useless.  Everything was going to be different, whether it was good or bad, and Clarke could not control any of it. In a count of weeks she doubted she'd be able to control her power again, the blasted little perk inside her that was nothing but torment. Now that the prison wall did not enclose her, that her power’s restraints were unleashed, unveiled, the door was open. It could easily flood her mind and veins and nerves and another vase would be shattered. 

Clarke’s hand grasped at her chest, searching for the shard’s jagged comfort, but only fisted blankets. She regripped, and then searched the plane of her chest for the pendant; but her neck held no string, her scapula lost that familiar weight that had been placed there since she was sixteen, millions of decades ago. 

Her hands traveled past her chest, to her torso, past her body and to the blankets below her. The cloths were thrown around her s Clarke’s ears searched for that soft  _ dink _ the shard would make as it would land on the floors below her. She was given nothing but the  _ plomp  _ of blankets as she tossed them.

As Clarke searched more, with her eye more than her hands, she caught the girl’s eyes, who looked frightened and concerned and righteous and knowing all in one.

Her hand stinged and she put the spark into her stare as she backed away to the wall the bed was pushed up against. Clarke held her gaze for long, the girl blinking and trying to break contact by looking at Clarke’s hand instead.

“Where is my necklace.” she left no room for anything but an answer, but it didn't succeed.

“That is a later conversation.”

“And my book. Where is my book?” Bellamy was looking down, at his accomplice’s hand, the fingers gripping the quilt with fabric pressing through the spaces between them. But he swept up to Clarke. 

“ _ Later.”  _

She sat back against the wall, knowing she won't be getting any information she asks for with these people. 

With a silent breath Clarke couldn't see, bellamy started up again. 

“You were found under the ruins of Polis. I was training to be a guard and when they saw the place was more than just a mountain, they told me to lure you out.” Bellamy shook his head. “Rookie games.” he braced a hand on the mattress. “Once you were out, the patrol took you to Mount Weather, where they keep… these things they find. I didn’t like the idea of bringing a person into an experimental place. So we got you out.”

“We?” she asked, half dazed. Bellamy cleared his throat. 

“Me and,” he gestured to the girl. “Octavia.” ... _ Octavia? _ A character from her book. Her favorite, might as well. Clarke suddenly had a feeling that it was a dream, this whole thing just the unnatural sleep getting the best of her mind and scurrying any type of detail her memory held. The glazed feeling to her vision added to the expanse. Octavia’s voice interrupted her speculation. 

“And Raven and Murphy.” Clarke looked to her at the small outburst. She started to feel guilty of whatever harshness she had as the girl coiled. 

Bellamy’s waves ruffled as he turned to look at his accomplice. “And Raven and Murphy.”

“Who…?”

“Allies,” bellamy stated. “Our friends helped us get you out.”

They gave Clarke a minute to think. She roamed over the pillow in front of her and the wrapping, to bellamy’s hands that were spread on the quilt as well. She said the only thing that fell to her tongue.

“Am I failing to recognize the part where you tell me why you stabbed me?”

“We’re getting there.” one of his hands moved to the girl’s knee. Clarke heard a skittering breath; from whom she was unsure. 

“The security in the lab is...tight. It was a risk to do it at all, with beliefs these days. But we came up with a plan. Octavia was to hide in one of the empty cells and we brought you out like it was just another briefing. O’ would act like another cell-creature attacking you.” Clarke gave him  a questioning glance in disbelief, like that was a viable story. He shook his head in return. “There, it’s more common than you would expect. I was half-surprised you weren’t hit already by the time we got you.” Her eyebrows fell. What did she do that people would want to hurt her? “That’s why we wanted to.” he gave her a few seconds to take that from him; that they all were  trying to protect her...by stabbing her. She gave him a glare and he read her thoughts, she knew he did, because his eyes became softer, but his jaw tightened.

“We  _ didn’t  _ want to hurt you.” Clarke's head snapped to Octavia, who kept her own down. “We… I was the only one qualified to be off that night. And the best at hiding. And...and the knife wasn’t long, it was just a small scalpel. Only long enough to draw enough blood.”

“We needed it to look like it was enough to send you to the certified medical ward. That is the only one who’s hallway also shares an emergency exit with no cameras.” Bellamy interrupted her. “We have Maya to thank for that.” so many names, too many places, just… a lot of information. Bellamy didn’t realize; he continued. “She said you will be fine within a week.”

Clarke adjusted her position in which she was sitting. She tried to comprehend their story, their claim of saving her. She wanted to believe it, that she was safe and  _ free _ , but...the people who she was supposedly  _ safe _ with got her to what deemed to be solitude…they put her in danger to get her there.

“You still hurt me. And trapped me.”

“If I didn’t, they would b -”

“Not  _ that,”  _ Clarke interrupted him. She already knew what he was going to say; if he did not get her, his family would be killed, his life destroyed - as she had trained to be a ruler, Clarke had heard it before. “I don't care about that. We all have unlikable jobs and responsibilities. But you  _ stabbed me _ to get me out of a ‘ _ lab’”  _  she slowed, tasting the new, unfamiliar word. “Just to bring me to another prison. To tease me.”

“Tease you.” Clarke didn’t say anything with the new bite at his tone; she just bit her swollen lip and tried not to look at the source of light to the right of her. It was fading, now a mere orange more than yellow. Her eyes betrayed her and they slid to look at their peripherals. 

“The _ sun?! _ ” She returned her eyes to him. He looked different when she did. Rather than a soft, juvenile cub from the forest, his eyes hardened into a vexed kitchen feline. “You think of yourself as a prisoner here because you can't look out the window?!”

Someone's breath caught. She assumed it was Octavia’s, since his was loud and heavy and Clarke herself wasn't breathing at all. 

“Yeah, I think you’d want to know,  _ Princess Clarke, _ that we are risking our lives to keep you here. We risked our lives to bring you here. For all we know, our very  _ presence _ is risking our safety. You want to look out the window? Fine. But in doing so, you are risking my life, your life, and everyone  in this seven-Hells-damn building more than you already are.” He inhaled, and Clarke almost flinched just thinking about the pressure his next breath would leave. The weight was already heavy. But a small hand covered his white-knuckled grips on his blankets under him.

“Bel,” Octavia breathed. He peeled away from Clarke, and until then she hadn’t realized how close he had leaned into her in the midsts of his lecture, or chiding, or whatever that was. 

“Dinner will be ready in two hours.” his gaze lingered for a second, and she knew it because she could feel the heat, burning into  her scalp as  Clarke kept her eyes on the dent he left in the mattress. The door creaked as he opened it,  and then his presence was gone. 

Her focus broke, her eyebrows softened from the unknowingly tense state, as Octavia cleared her throat. 

“My brother, he can be…” Octavia twisted her fingers, pulling them into her lap. “Well, he’s a little tense. And parent-y.”Clarke didn’t respond, although she knew Octavia had paused expecting her to. “But he also is a pretty good cook. Either that or i’ve gotten used to it. Just...he’ll come around, okay?”

Clarke looked next to her, to the loose blanket. She grabbed it with her bad hand, the friction immediately furnacing and pulled it along with her as she stood from the bed. She took her place in the direct line of the light, kneeled and then layed, wrapping herself in the uncomfortable warmth. 

This time, the heat was welcomed. Even if her mouth was dry or the warmth in her whole left side probably wasn’t exactly  _ healthy _ , it was feeling, and it was new, not recycled emotions from the same scenes in the same books for time on end. 

Her neck burned, and she welcomed it. Her back was drenched - it was  _ drenched _ . But it wasn’t blood, it was sweat. She welcomed it all the same, if not more. 

Clarke never heard the door close, and she wondered if Octavia really had the time to watch her cook herself alive and not even try to stop it. Clarke twisted, her side detesting. But the girl was gone and so was any trace of her or her brother. There was no dents in the bed, it had settled. And the door was left open in her trace.

It was only the slightest, maybe a finger’s length, but it was open. Welcoming her to the other side of the prison, just like she was welcoming the heat she shouldn’t have. But unlike the heat, she was not going to accept the invitation.

Clarke faced the window again, her fingers twitching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update, but i had four unexpected essays. things will be consistent for now on.
> 
> please please PLEASE leave reviews. thank you loves:)
> 
> thesaviorjones on tumblr!


	5. in this bath she contemplates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia makes it up to Clarke for stabbing her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a filler chapter, but character development all the same. tw: ptsd mentions, panic attack actions.

 

_ CHAPTER V _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Clarke believed it was probable that her keepers both thought she would have taken the offering on dinner; being in a lab for no doubt days without any actual nutrition would lead any sane person to do so. But she knew she wasn’t, nutrition-wise at least, and she had been lasting on no food for weeks at a time for centuries on more. 

The smell was luring; she had to give them that. There had been some new spices found, she didn't need to speculate that with any brain. But their scents were divine.

She had rubbed her chest raw. In her thoughts, she had been reaching for her necklace absently, for comfort, and disbanded the fact that it wasn't there anymore. Bellamy had taken it, and his sister had probably taken her book - 

Sister. 

She didn’t know why she hadn't seen it before, at the first sight of the girl. Maybe it was the period of isolation, and she forgot what to look for in the distinctions of relatives. The only conversations she had been having were with the imagined faces of story characters. 

To cut herself some slack, they didn't look  _ that _ much alike. Same high cheekbones and near-black hair,  sure. But his was unforgivably curly. And her eyes were a hard green, with his a soft brown… she would cut herself a second slice. 

Still, despite her spite, Clarke’s stomach growled. It had all the time in his first prison, but everything there was the same. Everyday. In this new place, nothing was like she’d ever seen it. Or heard, she inquired, because her stomach screaming wasn’t getting droned out as it usually would. If she would press her hands on her stomach, maybe it would rumble under her fingers. 

She doubted it and didn't do it.

Instead, Clarke stayed where Octavia left her. She had lost feeling in her right side long ago, but that was only the beginning. It was only so long until Clarke ran out of new things to do all that time ago, and it’d be a game; how much of her body could go asleep. It was fun.

Here, not so much.

The carpet was scratchy and the room was hot, even though most were pitch-black save for the mysterious light diving between the slit in the door frame. Bellamy had said it was July - which, from what she remembered, was summer, where it was hot during the day and frosty during the night. This contradicted her memories, as she probably laid in a sweat-puddle.

It was very unladylike. Unprincess like.

She kind of wanted to cry. But really, Clarke didn't know why. Maybe it was because she had finally been let out, and for some reason all those years there was a thought in the back of her mind telling her that her father would be there somewhere to greet her back into her life, her new one, with her mom or the people who were on her side. 

But her father was dead, and her shard from his vase was gone. And with Clarke’s luck, her mother probably survived the god-forsaken disaster - 

“Are you ever gonna come ou-” It sounded like a question until Bellamy’s voice from the background interrupted.

“She’ll come out or she starves, O.”

The odd light disappeared a minute before Octavia started talking, but it was back. She walked away.

 

+

 

When Clarke woke up, all she could feel was the crink in her neck. It was nothing but blackness around her, and she thought her eyes were asleep like her whole body was. 

But the slight glare on the table with compartments told her that no, she had not gone blind, and after a few attempts, her body started to gain feeling in it again. The first thing she felt was the slight sting from where her knees kept collapsing onto the scratchy Hell’s-damned carpet. But the pain was no surprise since for some reason these days pain outweighed any other feeling when it came to which was dominant. 

After balancing herself on the edge of the bed, she straightened. The blanket had fallen off during one of her first attempts to stand despite her nerves being unresponsive. Clarke felt around the bed, looking for the end of it. It was no doubt night time, and it was her best chance to seeing what these people really intended. 

That was only if they  _ slept _ at night anymore. If anything, it would be most probable that they had switched their sleeping arrangements somewhere down Earth’s timeline. If it wasn’t the case, Clarke would feel...disappointed. Doing the same thing for so long is boring, and she knew that better than anyone. But because of that, Clarke was also the first to know that boredom is cured with change. Simple, but the key to much.

Soon Clarke’s hand came in contact with a hard surface, and she knew it was the smooth walls. But now that she felt it beneath her fingertips, it wasn't as smooth as it was grainy. She couldn't find much that it reminded her of that may be tiny, crushed pebbles upon pebbles adheaved to a canvas surface.

Clarke gilded her hand across it, now not really liking that feeling it was giving her. It made her want to grit her teeth. But she reached a section of the wall, something she knew was the door frame,  and found the edge of the door. It was still open.

She stepped through space it provided. There wasn't much to see, nothing at all, really. Everything was still black, and she reached blindly in front of her, now unfamiliar with the area.  Turning in a circle had to be top of the listings for her worst idea yet, because now she was lost, without even a direction she knew she could back away into. Trapped, without any surroundings to go off of.

Trapped. Seven Hells. Trapped  _ again _ , because that was the only accomplishment she was supposedly allowed to make now. Trapped, trapped,  _ trap - _

“I was hoping you’d come out eventually.” Clarke jumped out of her own skin as a voice boomed out from her right, quiet, but equivalent to screaming her awake in the silence that otherwise overcame the black room.

The black room boomed into a warm glow of something Clarke remembered with a  _ click. _ It was the same room Bellamy was in when he opened her door when she knocked. Was Clarke acquiring brain damage? Of course, it was that room. She had only taken a few steps out of her door.

_ Her  _ door. Like always, not  _ her  _ anything.

She looked to where the speaking came from. There were only two possibilities of who said it, and the higher voice did not match Bellamy’s deep, intimidating one. 

Octavia puts her hand under a vase with a canvas covering. The plant the vase was holding seemed to be... glowing. Before anything, Clarke’s feet drew to it. The canvas was warm to the touch and tauter than what she used to use. She looked inside, and there was a  - small sun? Was the world so advanced that candles had turned into pieces of the sun itself? 

Octavia, who stood still throughout Clarke’s observing, spoke up. “Not many lamps where you come from, huh.” From her tone, Clarke thought she may have been smirking, and when she brought her eyes away from the glow she was proven right. “What made you come out?”

Clarke’s response was her tense expression, eyebrows drawn in confusion, eyes probably too wide for it to look like she was calm. Octavia took that as her answer. Her smirk turned into a friendly smile, at least perhaps as a friend as one could get with an odd girl imprisoned in her home, and pushed up off the cushioned seats she looked rather comfortable in. 

Clarke’s eyes followed but the rest of her body remained kneeling next to the vase - lamp? She looked back at it.

“Lamp?” She’d had a lamp in her library, but it never gave the same amount of light that this one had. This was  _ magic, _ like the spark of it that flowed under h -

A hand grasped her elbow. She was pulled up to her feet with a laugh from Octavia, who started moving towards a marble surface. 

“C’mon, I made sure to leave leftovers.”

 

+

 

Clarke was sat at the marble on a chair with no back. It was like the chair she had at her vanity back at the palace, only higher.

There was too many different tools Octavia was working with, so Clarke kept her eyes down on the patterns of the rock in the table. Frankly, Clarke was hesitant to look up, anyway. She was so, so thankful for so many new noises around that she could pay attention to, but her excitement was making her hyper-aware. All the humming and clicking and clattering these shiny boxes were making was getting to be too much, and Clarke just wanted it all to settle. She wanted to go back to that room, actually, believe it or not. But that would be giving in to being imprisoned in there, and they would be able to use it to their advantage one way or another. 

The china dish made a familiar sound as it appeared in Clarke’s line of vision. It was something Clarke hadn’t ever seen; a stack of two things, one around another. 

“Sorry if you are vegetarian. We've been low on vegetation supply recently, so a hamburger has to do.” Clarke continued to stare at it, now seeing there was bread surrounding something in the middle. It was brown and thick,  and truly, it smelled absolutely flavorful. Octavia’s voice came up again, farther away this time. “Do you like ketchup with yours? You probably don’t need it, anyway. Bel out does the seasoning.”

Clarke looked for knives or forks and found nothing. With Octavia so preoccupied, it off-hand told Clarke she didn't need any utensil. Even if she did, more so than not she would have ignored that factor. Washing forks in her prison for such a small amount of food became tedious quickly, and she hadn't used that of which in a very, very long time.

She picked it up with her one hand. It would be blandly too unhygienic to use her bandaged one, and for once Clarke wanted to avoid the pain it brought when she did. With more trouble than expected, Clarke was able to grasp it and brought it to her mouth.

The smell got better as it got closer, almost giving her a headache in comparison to the food she had been eating. 

Her cheeks were sore as she opened her mouth wide. And as she bit into her first real food in... well, a long time… her teeth tightened and her lips burned in the most delightful way. There was a clear comparison, of her mouth that was so tasteless and the burstings of flavors separating that wall. It was like she’d been sick for a while, nothing but the extract of sickness in her taste buds, and she finally was able to go to the dining hall again. Times one hundred million. 

Clarke was then able to recognize the texture as meat.  Even her palace food was dry in comparison. She took another bite once she swallowed, and then a bigger one following.

Her stomach...she almost  _ felt _ it filling up. Her skin stretching, her organs moving out of the way for her stomach to expand. But she took another bite, and another following that one until her fingers were the only thing left. Somewhere within her eating Octavia had slid in next to Clarke with a cup of water. She took it from where it was  and took a gulp.

“No ketchup. Got it.” The plate disappeared from in front of her and Octavia left her side. She put her hand to her full belly. It almost felt human again. 

“Do you want to take a shower or anything?” Clarke looked up at Octavia. She was leaning against a table across from Clarke, hands braced behind her. “I mean, you can do it tomorrow, but I assumed since you were up…or a bath, you can take a bath, to.”  _ Bath _ . It was no surprise that the offer startled her, and Octavia realized. She smiled, the same one as Clarke first saw from her earlier. She circled around, grabbed Clarke’s elbow again, and pulled her into her room.

The door she had noticed before during her observation of the room they had put her in was, in the end, the bath chambers. But there were much more additions to the last time Clarke had been in a proper one. Like there was in the main hall of the palace, marble tiles expanded on the floor and smaller versions lined the walls lined on one side was, what Octavia vaguely explain, was a sink and toilet. Covering the whole far wall was a bath that was smaller than her old one, made of what looked like the same material of the plate she used. Attached were gadgets of a strange sort. 

Clarke was wondering where their well was, or where they put the fire to warm the water when Octavia twisted on of the tools and water poured out from underneath. The loud noise startled Clarke a bit but she regained herself quickly. Soon steam rose, deflating her heating question, and as soon as the water was turned off, Clarke broke her phase of amazement before Octavia was able to see. 

“Okay. I’ll be right back since Bel is as protective of his soap as he is with me. You can get in if you want. I’ll knock before coming in again.”

Before Clarke could answer Octavia was gone, the door clicking shut behind her.

Next to Clarke was a mirror, above the...the sink, if she remembered correctly. She turned to it, wanting to look in. 

She hadn’t done in in a while. Between the amount of dust in her prison and the limited supplies she had available, cleaning her singular mirror became too much a chore. She let the dust collect on it, too much to the fact that is was impossible to wipe off without scratching it.

She closed her eyes. She didn't want to waste it by glancing really fast. Clarke made sure her feet were planted firmly in front of it, her eyes forward under their lids. Clarke opened them. 

It wasn't as far off from what she expected. Sure, now in this new light she could see her face was gray like those starving children were in the winter suns, the ones she made sure to leave some bread when they passed. But the hollow cheeks and jutting collarbones were nothing new, not since the last time she saw herself. Years ago, sure, but she was just as starving then as she was looking at herself now. The grayness contrasted with her red eyes, and pale, stringy hair. It was out of the braid, hanging loosely around her, ready to be easily tangled with its excessive length. 

When she removed her shirt, it was no surprise either. As long as she could, Clarke kept contact with the ghostly eyes that stared back at her. The blue of them looked painted. The color seemingly the only alive part of her whole being. 

Looking at her torso, Clarke was disappointed more than anything. She’d always been aware that her new figure would never fit in her dresses ever again. But her shrunken breasts, her tipping ribs, they wouldn't look good in  _ any  _ dress, no matter how small of fitting. And she never looked good in high necks, but the scars from the rawness on her chest would force her to.

Octavia returned not much later. Clarke was admiring the bandage on her side when she came in, a halting step back once she opened the door. Although she tried to be genuine, Clarke knew the smile wasn’t exactly true as she brushed past Clarke, placing the soaps at the end of the bath. 

“Good thing you didn't get in yet. I just remember that Maya doesn't want you to wash without taking the wrapping on your side off.” Octavia moved to do it herself as soon as she turned. As Clarke looked down at the girl’s dark head of shiny hair, she finally came to her senses.

Not more than a few hours ago the girl didn't even want to talk to her. And yet she waited outside the room Clarke was in, and then fed her something she was unfamiliar with. Now she was undressing her wound, letting her lay vulnerable and naked in the strange advancement of a bath. There was nowhere in the situation in which Clarke should be trusting her. Without a poison tester… the girl might as well had drugged Clarke, and as soon as she’s weak enough to not fight back, trap the fatal sir in her lungs as she chokes her to death. 

Clarke jumped back. At the sudden movement, Octavia backed away as well, hitting her head against the edge of the table behind her. 

“Ow…” Octavia winced and reached a hand to her head. It came back with crimson glistening the tips. Clarke was against the wall by then, in the corner right between the bath and the wall. Not her smartest move. If Octavia were planning on killing her as painlessly as Clarke’s envisioned plan, Clarke had just ruined it. One revengeful shove and Clarke would be in the bath’s steaming water, bloodied and cornered.

She surveyed her surroundings. Octavia was still sitting back on her heels, examining her wound. The shirt Clarke was given lay beside Octavia; farthest from Clarke. Shed have to cross her to cover herself. Dammit, dammit,  _ seven Hells, _ dammit. 

She was completely susceptible. Her torso was naked and her stomach didn't feel right, and there was water deep enough for her to drown in. Clarke's heart thudded in her ears when Octavia looked at her at last, her face strewn in discomfort.  Her own reflected with pleading, begging,  _ begging _ her not to kill her. Clarke couldn’t die - not in a bath chamber, the farthest from the sun shed ever felt in this white light blinding her. She needed to see it before flooding into darkness forever; because she surely had outlived the deadline for a good afterlife. 

Clarke melted to the floor - partially because her stomach clenched so hard - and just...guarded herself. Shaking, of course - her arms shook uncontrollably as she sank into the cold, cold corner of the two walls. She held them in front of her, hoping they would do any good.

A hand moved her hair over her shoulder and the place itself there lightly. The thumb ran up and down her shoulder blade. 

Clarke didn’t know exactly when her eyes shut, but spots constellated her vision as she loosened them, and opened. There was nothing in front of her, but through her cloudy peripherals she saw the wisp of dark hair, a bent knee propped out. 

“I’m fine, don’t worry. You’re okay,” Octavia’s voice was softer than before. Clarke let one sob escape before she got her breathing back in order. In, out. That’s what her riding coach told her. In, out, and the horse will breathe with her. She wished he used that tactic when her mother executed his for teaching Clarke such activities. She thought, maybe the rope would have listened like the steed had.

Her eyes drifted to the bath as a disturbing feeling climbed her throat. Looking at it now, she could see it was pretty. The water was clear and bubbled foamed throughout it. Clarke’s head dizzied, and then the taste of the meat hit her tongue - but much more disgusting than seasonful.  Whatever taste it was, nothing about it was delightful, and Clarke needed it out of her mouth. Not the bath’s water, not when it was prettier than a lagoon -  the bowl shape across from her looked like a better match. Clarke rolled to her knees, bent over the toilet, or whatever Octavia called it.

What was in Clarke's mouth wasn’t the end on it; she just got there in time for everything that she ate to be emptied. As she heaved, wisps of hair were pulled from her line of sight.  A hand ran up and down her spine, which probably felt weird considering how close it was under her skin. But it continued, even after she spit up nothing but water and air. 

She rested her head at the side the bowl. The smell was pungent, almost enough to make her throw up things shed ate decades ago. The hand on her back moved to her ribs, gently signally her to sit back, and so Clarke did, heavy with exhaustion. Octavia reached up to push a lever on the side, and the bowl made a noise that would usually scare her, but Clarke was too spent to react. 

“You’re okay,” Octavia said, returning back to Clarke. “Let's just get you cleaned up.”

And so, together, they did.  She was able to slip out of her bottoms and allowed Octavia to help her, skin and bones and all, into the bath. 

The girl washed her like her maid would, soothing little Clarke after a long day chasing beavers in the woods.  She closed her mind and imagined she was back there, submerged in warm water, keeping her dinner down even though she engulfed it in short minutes.  But then she would open them and Clarke would be back, with a girl not much older than she herself looked, cleaning her in water that was just past her jutting hip bones. Clarke missed the women's’ tunes and rhymes they would hum to themselves, the soft candlelight. She missed it a lot. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, sorry for the sort of filler chapter. i will be posting again on Wednesday, and depending on how writing goes i will post Sunday and Wednesdays or one of the two.
> 
> leave your thoughts that i love hearing:)


	6. under the coverings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> clarke unravels the truth pretty literally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day-early chapter for you all!

_CHAPTER VI_

  
  
  
  
  


When Clarke awoke, it felt much like another day in the palace. Outside, she though a bird chirped, and the bright morning sun shone through the curtains. Of course, her maids would usually open the curtains, but she had no maids that morning, nor permission to open the curtain.

She didn't remember falling asleep. She remembered being exhausted, sure; and cold, as the water drained from around her. Octavia gave her a towel to dry herself off with and tried to be strict about going easy on her side. The angry scab made Clarke want to avoid it, but she patted away the droplets around her and put on the set of clothes Octavia brought in not much after.

That was where it ended. Maybe there was a time in there before she stared into the darkness until her eyes ashed into sleep, that she was given something to eat. Smaller than the dinner she was given originally, but still bigger than her regular daily rations.

The silence that swept the room was too loud for her to focus, to hear if anyone was saying something on the other side of the door across from her. She heard nothing, so Clarke stared at her hands until she did.

There was a distant knock on a door, and some scuffling until it was opened.

“You said you needed a repair,” the voice said. It was muffled.  

“Yes, in the bathroom. This way,” Octavia’s responded. The door clicked, perhaps shut.

It was a few seconds before a soft knock sounded on Clarke’s door. Her eyes moved to it as it opened, and Octavia slipped in. She smiled when seeing Clarke awake, and looked back at the door as another body followed through.

“Okay, c’mon. Quickly, Maya.” A figure in some sort of green get up appeared, the torso filled with all buckles and jagged lines. The hat the person was wearing was removed, and a head of thick, curly, black hair cascaded from it. The girl carried a box at her side, the same sort of shape as the one from Clarke’s prison, but it looked sturdier and more promising as it was propped next to the girl as she kneeled.

“This is Maya, Clarke. She's going to check your side.” Octavia kneeled behind Maya as she opened the box.

The inside wasn't much different than what should have been in Clarke’s, hence whatever happened for it all to break. Small bottles, tubes, rolls of bandages...more modern to that present world, yes, but the basics were all the same.

Pulling her eyes away from the box, she looked at Maya’s face. She was focusing on removing the quilt from Clarke and lifting the light shirt Octavia had given her, but felt Clarke’s gaze and made quick eye contact, smiling back tightly.

The air was a small bit colder than it was under her blankets, and it bit her skin in tiny chill bumps as Maya lifted her shirt. Clarke’s wound was covered in a simpler bandage by Octavia after her bath. It didn't give the sensitive area as much cushion as the original did, and Clarke spent most of the night on her opposite side to avoid any further uncomfort.

She saw Maya wince as her fingers pulled the adhesive off Clarke’s skin. Her fingers that grazed Clarke’s skin hurt more than it, though and Clarke only shuffled into the mattress involuntarily. Her eyes welled just a bit as the remainder ripped off, the air opening to the raw nerves under her skin.

Clarke didn't know exactly when Maya’s hands were covered, but when she did notice, Clarke realized Maya’s hands were covered in light blue, loose and partially wrinkly.

Maya took a damp cloth and lightly brushed around her wound. It was warm. It also made Clarke cringe a bit, and she gripped the pillow under her head.

“You can tell me that patrol isn’t having a surprise check, you know.” Maya stopping working to look to the open doorway, and Clarke’s eyes flicked to follow. Bellamy’s expression was as tense as the room was since his voice surfaced. He leaned against the frame, thick arms crossed over his ribs. Bellamy’s eyebrows were furrowed as he looked at Clarke's exposed side from afar. Suddenly, she felt hot but wanted to cover herself all over again. The cloth that had paused was uncomfortably warm, and between his gaze and it she felt as if the wound would sear off.

“Sorry, Big Brother.” Octavia stood up from the corner of Clarke's eyes. She gestured to Maya. “I was just focused on getting her in unsuspected.”

Bellamy’s brows rose as he sighed and pushed off the surface,  and Clarke felt numb, knowing his mind was in a vexed state. He didn’t appreciate it at all; any of this effort for his prisoner. If it was actually true, and if death was expected if she was to be suspected, then his annoyance at her presence, Clarke admitted, was valid.

She probably would have backed away when Bellamy stopped at Maya's side, looking down at her. But Clarke was frozen. Between how much her nerves were tingling and the thought how much pain moving her side would entail, she couldn’t move at all.

So Clarke closed her eyes. She did so subtly, and they probably didn't even realize since they were already cast down to the doorway. But still it felt like her eyes were wide open and he was staring right back, his eyes and constellations reading out loud what exactly he had planned for her.

“Relax. I’m here to help.” Maya’s voice was calming, and the rapid rising of Clarke’s chest settled seconds after she realized it had actually begun. “Open your eyes. Don't fall asleep on me.”

She did, and her eyes opened to be inline with Bellamy’s hips. She kept them there, not daring to look side or down the slightest.

“She didn’t get that much sleep last night,” Octavia whispered behind Maya. Her black curls moved as Clarke assumed Maya looked back at her.

“Has that been happening often?”

“I mean,” Octavia shrugged, “it's only been a few days, and we’ve been letting her keep to herself. She came out last night hungry.”

“Sounds like we’re taking care of a cat,” Bellamy snarked. Clarke wanted to roll her eyes. She didn’t, mainly because  _there were still cats around?_

“That’s what maybe happens when one would take in a girl from an unknown place,” Maya replied, returning to her task.

“At least she came out, Bell.” Octavia came into Clarke’s line of sight, by Bellamy’s side. “It’s a start.”

“Yeah, sure.” He bent at his waist, but not far enough where Clarke saw his face. She knew the next statement would be directed at her. “The same thing goes for tonight, yeah?  You come out or you starve.” One of his hands left his side.

“Ow, stop it.” Octavia took a step back.

“‘ _Ow’_? What do you mean, ‘  _Ow’_?” Clarke looked up at them then to see Bellamy’s hand being swatted away from Octavia’s head.

“I told you, I hate when you put your hand on my head like that.” Octavia crossed her arms, looking back at Clarke’s side. “Messes up my hair.”

“Yeah, well I don't recall it hurting you being an excuse.”

“It was just...the first thing to come to mind. Forget it,” She murmured. Clarke’s sweat turned icy.  _It was her. She pushed her against the sink._

“No, let me see.” Reluctantly, Octavia moved forward so Bellamy went behind her. She winced as she touched a specific part, and he gently moved her hair out of the area. “There's blood, O’.” This caught Maya’s attention, her turning to them. Clarke took the chance to pull in a breath. He turned her around. “What happened.”

Octavia shook her head. “Nothing.” She turned to Maya. “Really, nothing. I just hit my head picking a cup up in the kitchen.” Clarke caught her eyes as they made their way back up to Bellamy. “I’m fine.”

“You should’ve told me, Octavia.” Maya continued on Clarke. “I’d have no problem with coming by earlier, and it probably would’ve worked better with our plan. I'll look at it after I finish her.”

Slowly, Clarke released her breath. She prayed Maya didn’t notice.

 

+

 

Maya worked on her for a while after that. Clarke kept her eyes cast down, hoping nothing of her odd-ease body language gave anything of what really happened away. If Bellamy found out it was Clarke, who inflicted a head wound on his sister, she didn't exactly want to think what followed it. She recalled Octavia’s secondhand confession that Bellamy was protective, and as if he had heard her say it, the scene he pulled was a perfect example of what she meant.

They watched the whole time. She didn't see, she kept her sight at Bellamy’s socked feet, but she felt it. The tension in the room could be slight with the draw of an arrow. And at the same time, the arrow was also splintering her wound. Everything overall made Clarke hot all over, and yet the cold sweat returned every time Bellamy so much as shifted on his feet.

She still didn't know these people. She knew his last name was Blake, sure. She knew they were brother and sister, and that Bellamy was in a position to go into ancient prisons. That was it.

And then again, nothing of the times she did know were even relatively true. He could be lying, he probably  _was_ lying. Blake sounded like a common enough name. They looked like they might have been the same blood, but they also easily couldn't have been.

And Octavia, the girl was the most untrustworthy of all of them. And Clarke knew first hand, now; she had just watched her lie to her brother’s face. She had been so tucked in when Clarke had met her, scared of the creature in the bed, and not but hours later she was bathing and feeding and soothing it.

Nothing,  _nothing,_ made sense.

Nothing connected, nothing was a hard fact. Nothing was like Bellamy’s constellations or the scratchy carpet. Because at first look one would see the stars, and at first touch, one would know the texture. It wouldn't change after then; it was patent. Clay that had been dried into the tunnels of the mind.  And better yet, each of them turned out to be cruel, a kidnapper or an uncomfortable flooring. Because nothing was as good as it seemed. Everything was too good to be true.

It annoyed her. So much, Clarke wanted to strangle someone...something. Anything. Her hand under her pillow grasped it, and she held it there as the skin tingled.

“Alright,” Maya said, pulling her shirt back down. “Now, let me see your hand.” Clarke didn't move it, so Maya took her elbow in two hands, placing Clarke’s hand in front of her. “You didn’t get this wet, right?”

“Right,” Octavia responded.

Maya started unwrapping the bandages. Clarke wanted to look away. She couldn't. She wanted to close her eyes. She couldn't. Maya said to not fall asleep, and if she closed her eyes she would.

So Clarke watched as her ruined hand was revealed.

It actually hurt to look at it. She lost a lot of feeling in it already, and the pain she felt every day from starvation dulled it out, anyway. But it still hurt, perhaps emotionally instead.

Her patience in her prison was usually tight. Everything would work the same way it has the day before, and so when it didn't, she get mad. She had been doing her job, and she had limits. Immortal objects should have expected to do the same.

That's why she never bothered to learn how to draw with the right. She did for several months, yes, but it wasn't long before realizing it was just a waste of paint she never knew when would empty and gave up.

Looking at her dominant hand’s flesh now, Clarke wished she'd had wasted the hells-damned-paint.  Because with this hand, painting...it would never happen again.

Octavia gasped, just the slightest.

“Jesus,” a deeper voice murmured. At that, Clarke almost gasped herself. But she didn’t, because her focus was on her left hand, broken and stung in front of her.

  Her inappropriate use of it was probably partially the blame. As was her putting it on the burning door in the first place, but…

The skin, if one was brave enough to call it that, was various fuschias on pinks and purples and yellows and red. Where her palms creases were was crusted blood as well as new, with torn and burnt flesh where there never should be.

Maya glanced at Clarke. Clarke did not glance back.

“I’m going to have to clean this all out. Is the okay?” Clarke stayed silent, and she saw Bellamy rub a hand down his face. Octavia and he had sat on the floor sometime during her unwrapping.

“I’ll get some towels, and motrin,” Bellamy stood as exited the room. Maya nodded absently.

“Octavia, I want you to go take a shower, wash out your hair. Don’t use shampoo, use the sterile soap in my med kit. It’s in the bottom right compartment. Only one squeeze.” Hesitantly, Octavia did what Maya asked, quietly leaving the room. She passed Bellamy who was on his way in.

“I got bowls of cold and hot water,” he said, his hair coming into view as he placed them down. “And towels.”

“Thanks, Bellamy.” He sat back on his heels and watched as she placed a towel under Clarke’s hand and wet a washcloth in cold water. In the distance there was rain hitting marble.

Carefully, Maya dubbed the cloth on Clarke’s palm. She didn’t know who actually did it, but there was a sharp intake of breath like it wasn’t Clarke with the burnt hand, but the other person.  She didn’t have the energy to do make any noise herself, though, so Clarke appreciated his or her partaking in it.

Clarke felt guilty as Maya washed her hand. It wasn't much of one anymore, and the glares of Bellamy must have been distracting.

“I need to clean out the bacteria, okay?” she looked at Clarke for any approval, or life, even. Clarke frowned at the new word.  _Bacteria?_ She wanted to sound it off her tongue but found her mouth dry. Her lips moved anyway. “It's going to hurt. They should have done this in the lab, where sedating is an option. But I don't have enough -”

“Why didn’t they, then?” Bellamy asked from behind her, his head nodding at Clarke’s hand. Maya shook her head.

“I don’t know. My guess is they wanted to see how her body healed.” both Clarke and Bellamy must have worn a confused countenance because Maya looked between them and continued. “They’re goal is to learn more about the pre-apocalyptic world. That includes how people - or things,” she clarified, “reacted differently than how we do.”

“You’re saying that  _she_ ,” he gestured to Clarke, “is from the pre-apocalyptic world.”

“She may be,” Maya shrugged, looking down at Clarke over her shoulder. “It’s hard to say, though. So far she is having the same reactions as all of us. I can't get into the security reports of her mountain, either. Not until they find her, which I wouldn’t recommend at the moment. But...she may be.”

 

+

 

Maya was there for hours later. Her hand felt heavy when she finally left, filled with new healing oils and creams and technology. Octavia told Clarke she would come back the next night and left Clarke alone with a small plate of food on the table. Clarke ate it when it turned cold.

Her whole stomach of food returned not an hour later as she dozed off to a sleep of cages and glowing bars. Where she woke up to four walls and a closed door.

The bath chamber’s floors were comfortable, anyway, and Clarke stayed there for the majority of her sleep.

Like she said.  _Too good to be true._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy valentines day!
> 
> i was going to post this tomorrow like i am trying to start to do but then i realized some may be busy cough cough on valentines day, so i decided to post it earlier rather than lateer. plus i couldnt wait to hear the wonderful feedback you all have been giving, so thankyou!
> 
> see you sunday!


	7. found in the weavings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dysfunctional family bonding time.

_ CHAPTER VII  _

  
  
  
  


“C’mon, Clarke. Being  in that room is probably really, really boring.” Clarke looked up from examining one of the small paintings. It had been days since Maya came, and she left saying that she'd come at the end of the week. Clarke had lost conception of when that was so she just decided to wait until she showed up again.

Octavia held the door open with a small smile on her lips. Behind her, Clarke didn’t see Bellamy anywhere, and that gave her a small motivation to follow her. 

She rolled off the bed, letting the painting go back onto the table and her blanket falling out behind her. It tickled her ankles as it’s fabric floated down. 

Octavia’s eyes glanced at the painting Clarke was looking at, one with both her and Bellamy smiling together. It was one of the ones Clarke had first seen, and she liked comparing their differences, and how perhaps she'd draw them if she could.

Not both of them. Certainly not. Bellamy had too many freckles, and it would be annoying. Too annoying for his existence to hold. Everything about him was annoying in some way, and it bothered Clarke. It made her unsettled. Because there was an imbalance in it, somewhere, but she couldn’t picture what was on the other side, weighing more than the one she  _ could  _ see. Which was also annoying. And irritating, and any other word that meant the same thing. 

Shed have thought that after the number of years Clarke was left with nothing but her mind, she would be able to figure out what that other side was. But she couldn't, no matter how much she thought of it or looked at the painting or thought of  _ him,  _ which really, was not fun compared to all of her other thoughts. Especially because it took up a lot more time than everything else, and seemed to have a power over the others. And at the same time,  _ confused _ her. Because there were different sides of Bellamy, she would suggest herself. One helping her while the other murderous over her. It took up too much time analyzing and comparing too much effort, and Clarke wanted it to stop. 

It kept her busy, though.

Clarke walked out of the bedchambers. Still no Bellamy.  In the light, the room was different, a little bigger than her bathing chambers from her palace. There were cushion chairs on each side and they looked like they were made of feathers. A low table sat in the middle of them, and the lamp was on a small square table in the back corner. The window that spread across most of the wall was covered. No surprise, though.

“Bell isn’t here,” Octavia stated from behind her. “We have to go work at the lab to not raise suspicion. We have some girl time.”

Clarke looked at her. She leaned against that marble counter Clarke ate her meal on a few nights ago, rubbing her hands together. Clarke sensed her nervousness in the action and tried to at least visibly relax, loosen her face, anything to put the poor girl at ease. It may have had some effect, but the tightness that stayed put in her mind remained and probably crept onto her outside appearance.

She didn't  _ want _ girl time. That was all she got. She had spent so much time with Octavia, one-sided or not, and the uneasy trust made her a bit overwhelmed. With everything, Octavia was doing, plus with what Clarke was understanding,  _ working _ on top of it, trust was less than the girl deserved. But Clarke was still unsure, her location was unknown as were her takers. She could very well be sitting in a trap, a stimulation of the lab they had supposedly saved her from. 

She had to become stronger, Clarke told herself. She had to become stronger, make them think she trusted them, and then when they go into the attack she unexpectedly would fight back, win, and escape. 

But she also took note of how her body was, and even adding the smallest bit of strength to it would be beyond noticeable. If she were to keep her food down, maybe, just  _ maybe,  _  she could fatten up just a little bit. Enough to hide any muscle, at least. Just  _ maybe… _

“Do you want to do anything specific?” Octavia started. Clark started to look around, taking in the new materials this world brought. “We have a few board games, but most are for bigger groups. Or we can make something, like cookies.”

 

In the end, they didn't do either of those things. Octavia wound up getting her hairbrush and some dainty faux flowers. She braided Clarke’s long hair up, the plaits circling around her head like a crown, with the plants slipped in here and there. Octavia said Clarke had natural highlights that she was jealous of, whatever that meant, and even with the windows covered she could already picture the shine the sunlight gave her golden strands. Clarke found herself, though keeping her words to herself, smiling a little bit at the feeling of being a princess again, her hair off her neck and pretty. She felt pretty, too, the heat that was no longer on her neck melting down her back, pushing her shoulders down and back with it. Even after seven thousand years, the seventeen she spent getting scolded for bad posture still came into play. 

Bellamy must have thought so, too, because he looked really dazed when he finally opened the door, returning home. His face reminded her of the time when she first saw him, a bit slack-jawed and eyes widened. He dropped his bag that was over his shoulder; maybe it was perhaps heavy. Clarke's princess attitude got the best of her, then,  since the look on his face was the same she saw as many commons as they stood in front of the royal family for the first time; she found the courtroom accent she always found different than her casual voice. 

“Why are your eyes always so wide?” There was a breath in the room held between the siblings, and Clarke sort of wanted to cough to get the tickle out of her throat. But Octavia dispatched it quickly, adjusting her knees’ stance behind Clarke on the couch, fixing a part of the braid. 

“Bellamy isn’t too good at hiding  his emotions.” He gave Octavia a look, his face hardening as quickly as usual, and she saw him back to his regular self. 

“It's about time she came out. I’m taking a shower.” he exited the room into where Clarke was staying and closed the door behind him. Octavia let out a breath Clarke felt on her scalp; she could tell Octavia was amused.

“Five, four, three, two…”

“ _ Seven Hells _ .” Bellamy returned to the room, walking across to the other door. His mouth was moving as he passed, and Clarke assumed his lips were working out a few more strings of curses.

Octavia laughed behind Clarke. She found herself smiling, too.

 

+

 

The braid crown wasn’t the end of it. All evening, Octavia sat Clarke on the floor in front of the couch and twisted and twirled her hair as Bellamy sat across from them, a book in his lab. Clarke's fingers twitched to grab it, read a different story  _ finally _ , besides the ones in her prison’s library. HEr mouth tingled to ask Bellamy what it was about, to see what sort of new stories arose. But her throat was sore and she had a slight headache from her comment earlier. And so she watched him read through these bulky spectacles, his curls hanging off his forehead as he leaned forward.

“I think this is the prettiest yet. Don't you think, Bell?” Clarke didn't know what this hairstyle was, but her stylist seemed proud, so she returned to her royalty-posture for the effect. Bellamy looked above the rims of his spectacles and through his curls quickly before returning to his reading. 

“She looks like some queen from a fantasy holo-program,” he responded, quite enthusiastically. Octavia sighed and started unraveling the braids, going on to the next idea. Clarke went to sigh with her but found no air in her lungs; that she had stopped breathing at the irony of his comment. 

Later, they had a quick dinner made of something from a ration packet, Octavia explained. It was odd, it felt odd, to sit at the table with them, but Clarke tried to without a fuss. The dinner was mildly uncomfortable with the silence, but she finished quickly, as usual, still ecstatic about having more than nibbles to eat. When Octavia saw she was done she told Clarke to put the dishes in the disposer and return to her room if she wanted. Clarke did, knowing it wouldn't be long until Octavia followed.

The familiarity of the room was far more comforting than the sitting area, and Bellamy wasn’t there to feel intimidated. SO when Octavia walked in, she immediately asked the question that was nicking at her.

“What was he reading?”

“Who? Bellamy?” she laughed a bit. “Some history or mythology text. I don’t know, he's a nerd for that stuff. Main reason why he's started working with the patrol, to get some real-life interaction with it.”

“And you?”

“And me what?”

“Why do you work with...the patrol?”

Octavia shrugged at her question, giving Clarke a half-smile not reaching her eyes.

“Everyone needs to work somewhere.” she looked at the small painting beside Clarke, of her and her brother. This time her eyes lit up as her lips tilted. “That's one of my favorite pictures of us. It was right before everything went to shit with the trigger-happy patrol people.”

Clarke looked down at the painting. A whole different meaning met her when she saw their faces, the genuine bliss in their muscles. Something that may have been taken every second and would look the same as the last. Not a worry on their tongues. 

She didn't exactly know what Octavia meant by everything going bad. But then again, she didn't know anything outside of their living spaces. It made her antsy. 

They stared at the picture a small bit longer before Octavia sighed and stood up from where she was at the edge of the bed. 

“It’s late. You’re probably tired. I know I am.” she walked to the door, the room on the other side dim as she opened it. Before going through, Octavia turned back to her. “Night Clarke.”

Clarke went under her covers then, the simple braid Octavia left her in going down her back. She closed her eyes and drifted into some sleep.

 

+

 

Against the blackness of Clarke’s room, the slight dimness of the living quarters threw her awake as the door swung open. The slight tightness of her eyes told her she hadn't been asleep for long. 

As she sat up in the bed, Clarke’s eyes strained to see who was in the doorway. The silhouette was closer to the top of the frame than Octavia's was, and between the build and the curls, she knew it was Bellamy. Her stomach pounding as much as her heart did at the shock.

“Sorry,” he said. “My extra tube of toothpaste is in this bathroom.” He started to walk towards it, but Clarke threw the blankets off her legs. The tightness in her throat had returned, as was the disgusting taste that tingled in her mouth already. 

_ Dammit. She was almost through the night this time. _

She fell to her knees trying to get out of the bed but got right back up to run around the bed. 

“Hey, hey!” Bellamy’s arms shot out, wrapping around Clarke’s arms and torso. She spun out of his hold. 

Clarke didn't have time to flip the small lever for the light this time, so she bent over the toilet in darkness, the floor’s cold tile cooling her raw knees. 

Wisps of hair fell forward, the small ones that slipped out of her braid. She swiped them away quickly before replacing her hands on each edge of the bowl. 

Her throat burned and stomach throbbed with the little food left in it. The mere taste it left her with made Clarke gag, whatever is left in her body escaping. She dropped to the side, resting her cheek on the edge, and closed her eyes, taking the deep breaths she had found worked the best after doing this every night. 

Seconds after her eyes closed, she squeezed them tighter shut as light exploded in the room. She felt a presence, heard it, as there was a creak in wood as someone leaned against the doorway.  _ Bellamy, dammit.  _

Hands grasped each of her biceps, and the restrictions startled her, making Clarke snap her eyes open and do one pitiful jerk to try and break free. But her limbs were exhausted, and the lighted sight of her food in the bowl made her heave painfully, clenching her nonexistent muscles to the extreme. 

Clarke let the hands push her away from the bowl, then, to have her rest against the bath’s side behind her. She let her head fall back to rest on the edge and closed her eyes. Distantly, the sound of the water replacing itself sounded. It still startled her when she heard the loud sound, and Clarke moved farther away from it, into the corner.

The sound of the sink turned on briefly. She opened her eyes as she felt a slight brush at her knee. In front of her, Bellamy kneeled leveled, holding a wet cloth. Clarke took it without hesitation and wiped her mouth. 

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to - scare...you.” Clarke looked up at him. Bellamy’s mouth was closed tightly, his brows dropping. Her eyes fluttered back shut as she rolled her head to one shoulder. “You okay?”

Clarke rolled her eyes under her lids. What a rehearsed question. Always seemed to be a necessity in any event similar to this. 

“I’m fine,” Clarke croaked. Her spit felt like sharp glass shards tumbling across the sandpaper of her throat as she swallowed.

Clarke gripped the bath’s wall behind her and pushed herself up on numb muscles and shaky knees. Bellamy moved out of the way just enough for her a take one step to the sink, in the tight space, and rest her left elbow on the edge as she leaned over limply. Clarke turned the lever, letting the water flow, and took her cupped hand filled with it to her mouth. She swished the liquid around her mouth, ridding the taste as much as she could, and spit it back out. 

“I have cups for that. If you want one,” Bellamy offered behind her. Through her eyelashes, Clarke saw him gesture a hand in the mirror.

“I’m fine,” Clarke repeated, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth to rid of the excess water around it. She pushed off her elbow and ignored him as she went back into the bedchambers. Clarke stumbled a bit on the way back to the bed, grabbing onto multiple surfaces for balance before collapsing back into her fetus position in her usual spot in the bed. She ignored the shadow crossing the room and pulled the covers back up to her chin. Clarke closed her eyes again.

Her body was chilled as the blankets were torn off of Clarke, and she opened her eyes in irritation. 

“Last time I checked, some throwing their guts up is not  _ fine _ .” Clarke lifting her focus the Bellamy towering over her horizontal frame. 

“Go get whatever paste you came here for,” she said, replacing the blankets back over her. Bellamy watched the folds straighten as she pulled the cloths tight around her. “It was just because of the fright.” She watched him run his hand over his face. She was vexing him greatly, for whatever reason. He probably finally decided to take action and not be a damn bastard like his usual self, and Clarke’s own tactics seemed to have demolished the idea in his fooled brain. Shame. 

“Fine, whatever. Just wanted to brush my damn teeth. Don’t say I was the rude one.” he disappeared from her line of vision and she closed her eyes, not having anywhere else to look. She heard him searching for something, rather obnoxiously, in Clarke’s taste, and the flick of the light as any glow deflated behind her closed eyes. She heard the groans of floorboards under the carpet, under his feet. She heard the creaks of the doors as he moved them. But Clarke never heard a click of them shutting. Bellamy had left her cage open. 

Clarke drifted to sleep, all through the dark hours. She didn’t have a single dream of bars or cuffs or prisons. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy sunday readers!
> 
> was going to put in one more chapter but was like, eh. better for the next one. 
> 
> see you all Wednesday or Thursday, whenever I feel like it. 
> 
> (do you guys like the lengths of these chapters? would you want them longer or shorter?)
> 
> kudos and reviews are very appreciated:)


	8. past in the front

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> overwhelming anxieties.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enjoy this longer chapter:)

_CHAPTER VIII_  
  
  
  
  
  


“Your stab wound looks much better. It’s starting to close and seal.” Maya applied the ointment on, cool and soothing, and replaced Clarke’s bandage. Octavia shifted on her feet behind Maya, next to Bellamy. The siblings both had their arms crossed in a comfortable state, looking down at Maya’s work. 

“And her...hand?” 

Maya winced at the sound of it, and Clarke couldn't blame her. She wanted to cringe at the thought of it, too, even without the medical diagnosis. Her palm tingled, almost knowingly of the conversation, reminding Clarke it was still there. Her bandaged hand was taken into Maya’s hold. She unwrapped Clarke’s covering, peeking underneath the folds and turning to her med kit. 

“Not as much. But,” she turned back to Clarke, looking straight into her eyes. “It will. It'll take time, yes. But your hand will get better.” Clarke gave her a singular, curt nod before watching the girl unwrap her hand. 

The burns were less drastic than they were in Maya’s previous visit. The skin had started to meld back together, so a majority of the lesions were of blisters and swollen flesh. The color was there, though- no doubt… pinks and reds and purples of all sorts of bruising exploded in rims around her whole palm. But Clarke was able to see where Maya was coming from. Slowly, her hand was going to form back together again.

Clarke cleared her throat silently. “And how will it...be when it's healed?” Maya applied some cream on it, thinking for a second. 

“Well, it will definitely scar,” she started. Clarke caught her eyes drifting to her side. “So will your stab wound, unfortunately, but not as much of course. There's probably nerve damage, too, but I want to wait a little longer before checking up on that.”

“Nerve damage?” Clarke asked, wanting any further education she could get. Medical knowledge had since further enhanced from when she'd been locked up. Clarke wanted to get input on as much as possible. 

“It's common with burns. It won't really affect you, but you'll certainly need some kind of therapy to get used to some of the limitations it would bring.” 

Clarke looked at her hand again then, the supposed healing factors straight out the window she wasn't even allowed to look through. Her hand isn't ever going to truly heal, not enough for it to be the same. They could not have improved their methods enough for that to happen.

And of course, it was her very own flesh that was giving her the best ideas. All of the pinkish tones called for wildflowers, a sunset cast down behind a field of them. But she  _ couldn’t _ , she couldn't paint them. She couldn't paint anything she suddenly wanted to paint, all because she was greedy and stupid and just want the damned door to stay  _ open  _ for once. 

Clarke sighed. She looked past Maya’s shoulder, mistakenly at Bellamy. But she kept her gaze anyway, letting him look into the broken eyes of her shell of a body. She thought one thing. As Clarke scaped over his nose, accounted for all his freckles and doey eyes, and even his impossible lips, she miraculous only had one thing on her mind. 

_ She couldn't. _

 

_ + _

 

“I just want to check one more thing,” Maya said, putting all of her treatments back into her kit. Clarke's hand had been neatly wrapped with new bandages, and it made her feel somehow...cleaner. “Can you sit up for me?” 

Between her hand and weak muscles, Clarke knew it was going to be a little bit of a challenge. She would usually be alone when she did this or would tumble off the bed and get up from there. But here Clarke was, in front of everyone she knew from this world, about the pathetically fail at such a simple task. 

She placed her one hand in line with her hip on the mattress and attempted to use the leverage and scooch up. It didn't work. Clarke found herself on her elbows, taking a deep breath; out of embarrassment or irritation, she wasn't sure. She didn't even go for sitting herself up, knowing her abdominals were nothing but a mere second layer of skin. In defeat, Clarke fell into the pillows, covering her eyes with her forearm. 

Seconds later, warmth wrapped her shoulders. It went to pull her up, in which Clarke pushed against in reluctance. There was a pause, and Clarke almost opened her eyes, but hot breath blew against her ear. She shuddered. 

“C’mon, Princess,” Bellamy murmured. “Help me out.” 

And so, Clarke did. She let Bellamy push her into a position she couldn’t get into herself; a regular crisscross of her legs. Even as she was able to find her center, Bellamy’s arm kept around her shoulder, shakenly until he settled her back into pillows behind her. 

She opened her eyes, then. Prepared for the embarrassment. But she opened them to the room’s door, nothing else but the tension she didn't feel as much before. 

Black curls entered her vision, and Maya sat in front of her. She had a small stick in her hand, made of wood. 

“Open your mouth for me,” she instructed, moving forward, the stick ready. “I'm going to use this and push down on your tongue to see your throat, okay?” Clarke nodded. she opened her mouth, chapped lips pulling against the dry skin.  Maya pushed her chin down softly, telling Clarke to open wider. She did.

It was a weird sensation. Somewhere her tongue didn't want to go. But she watched as Maya looked into her mouth, eyebrows set in, focused. The stick was pushed back farther, and it made her gag. A warm hand clamped on her bony elbow. She wanted to flinch away, but Maya looked too focused to interrupt in any way.

“Sorry,” Maya apologized. She retracted the stick and Clarke swallowed immediately. Maya turned to her notepad and wrote something down. It was too far away for Clarke to see what it said. “This is...odd,” Maya started, looking at Bellamy. “I was looking for any symptoms regarding a habitation illness. When someone is taken from a lab, even after a short amount of time, their immune system might react to the non-sterile environment negatively.”

“Is she sick?” Clarke watched Octavia make her way over to Bellamy. Maya looked at what she wrote down once more. 

“That's what’s odd. She isn't showing specific symptoms of the sort of illness we’d see. But her glands and tonsil are in bad shape; her throat is red too.”

“And what does that mean?” Bellamy’s hand left Clarke shoulder, and she found herself wanting it back as a chill went through her skin. 

“Its a symptom of vomiting,” Maya stated. Clarke wanted to vomit again, just thinking about the taste. But there wasn't anything in her stomach to come back up. 

“I came in unannounced the other night, gave her a fright,” Bellamy admitted. “That's probably why.” but Maya shook her head.

“No, this is…” she opened Clarke's mouth again, this time slightly heating it with a smaller version of a light. Clarke closed her eyes at the brightness. “This shows more than once.”

“She also had a...panic, I guess? One of the first nights she was here,” Octavia added. This caught Maya’s attention.

“Panic?” 

“Yeah,” Octavia confirmed, shaking her head, perhaps trying to recall specifics. “I was trying to give her a bath, and she freaked out a little. Something happened and she kinda lost it. She threw up it was so bad.”  Maya watched Octavia for a second before turning back to Clarke. 

“The swells...it’s showing more than just two times, though. It’s multiple. Are you sure you guys don’t have any reports on where she was found?”

“There has to be something by now,” Octavia noted. “It's been almost two weeks. But us getting it, I think it’ll raise too much suspicion, especially if we are caught.” 

“I think it’s time, then,” Bellamy said. Clarke looked up at him. He nodded to himself. “I’ll comm Raven.”

 

+

 

Maya had to leave, for a simple repair technician staying for so long would be deemed dubious. She left with confirmation that her comm would be open for them at any time they got the information she needed. 

Clarke felt the close eye the siblings were keeping on her. They were hovering, for some unknown reason, over her every move, which wasn't much as usual. Clarke would admire their paintings of each other, try to braid her hair single-handedly; it was quite pitiful. She was pretty relieved when Octavia sat her down.

“Raven’s on her way,” Octavia explained to her. She sat on the couch, facing Clarke. Bellamy placed himself on the other side, elbows on his knees, making Clarke wedged between the two. She leaned back against the cushions behind them. “She’s our friend, and also a very good hacker. She's going to get into the lab’s files.”

Clarke nodded, not understanding most of it, but not caring either. She didn't understand the point of the whole file ordeal in the first place, so asking questions now would just be too much for her to comprehend. 

As if on cue, a knock sounded. Bellamy’s hair brushed on Clarke’s arm as he snapped his head toward the door, her own eyes following. He pushed himself up and walked toward the door as another knock came about, sounding a little more impatient this time. His hand on the knob, Bellamy looked back, at Clarke, for reassurance. She nodded.

Ravens were always used in the most ominous bedtime stories when Clarke was a child. They always foreshadowed the problem of the story, showing up in the light of times to bring something dark. 

The girl on the other side of the door, Raven, certainly would look like the sort of person who had that effect. But the smile that transformed her face as she peeked around Bellamy to see Clarke disbanded any trace of ominisity, and Clarke didn’t feel any of the fear that had started to rise up.

“Is that her?” Raven exclaimed, flooding in. she was carrying a tightly packed satchel. 

“Raven,  _ quiet,”  _ Octavia shushed her. Bellamy closed the door and headed back to where he was sitting as Raven sat across from the three of them.

“Let's get this done quick. I have to go in an hour for my shift,” Bellamy told her. Raven nodded and opened her bag. 

Clarke didn't even want to look.  _ Hacking _ did not sound like any term that she was familiar with, and she didn't want to see if she wanted to actually know what it was, frankly. Her speculations were shown to be true as Raven pulled out a tight, black slate and opened it like a book, revealing squares of letters pasted onto the inside. She set it in front of her right away and started to press countless buttons.

Clarke found herself leaning forward, inspecting the device as it lit up Raven’s roaming eyes. They made tiny clicking noises and she worked, forming countless ideas as to what she might have been doing into Clarke’s brain. 

“How long do you think it will take?” Octavia asked. Raven smirked.

“It’s not my first time being curious about what that place is up to. I have most of the things that would have taken the longest saved, so all I need to get into are Clarke’s files.”

It was silent as Raven worked on whatever it was she was doing. Clarke suspected no one wanted to risk interrupting the girl. She was quite intimidating, she had to agree. Although Clarke liked the twists in her hair, going into a tail, something Clarke could not imagine doing on herself. In her mind, she searched through her list of book characters, see if any of them would be able to pull it off, either. None of them seemed bold enough.

“I’m in,” Raven announced, eyes wide in the light. All three of their heads perk up from playing with their fingers. Octavia had redone Clarke’s braid, this time it weaving from the top of her head. Clarke watched as Raven’s brows furrowed. “Woah…”

Octavia pushed off and went to sit next to Raven. Bellamy followed, looking back at Clarke as if to tell her,  _ come see. _

They crowded around Raven. In front of them was another detailed painting, in a shiny frame, of Clarke’s prison.

Clarke swallowed.

“That's where the patrol found her.” Bellamy cleared his throat.

“Its…” Raven shook her head, wordless. 

In the painting, they were able to capture the mess she had made, and exact replicas of all her chipped paintwork. 

The paintings changed as Raven clicked something. It was now of her library, all of her books scattered, with a few lone on their shelves. Clarke went to swallow again, but she found the lump in her throat would not let her.

They changed again. Her bedchambers, or cot, more so. Her painting room. Her rations supply, her tallies, everything was in more and more of these paintings.  _ Detailed; so, so detailed, it scared her. _

A few more came on and off. Close-ups of splintered furniture, her drawings, books...it brought everything that may have faded away,  _ finally _ , back. 

She had sat in that chair  six million, seventy-three thousand, nine hundred eigh t times. She had tripped on that carpet  eight hundred seven one times. There were four thousand, three hundred and ninety-five tallies on that wall. 

Clarke couldn’t breathe. The lump in her throat had expanded, her lungs shrunk, she was on  _ fire _ . She tried to contain herself, she did. Deep breath in, deep breath out. In, out. Pushing her lungs to the extreme, maybe. The breaths stuttering, yes. But she was breathing. A little bit, but there was air…

And the door.

Thirteen times. She had touched the door thirteen times. 

Before Clarke realized it herself, she was on her feet. And then she was in the room she had stayed in, the door shut behind her. And then she was on the floor, leaning against it, hand grasping her new braided scalp. It was so pretty. Octavia did such a great job. But Clarke was ruining it like she did everything. She had ruined her hand, she had ruined her family, her kingdom, the prison that was her shelter for  _ seven thousand years. _

She thought hard. Back to her first few years in there, tears burning pathways on her cheeks as she had to repeat to herself, over and over. Repeating to herself that it wasn’t her fault, that this whole... _ power _ she was  _ cursed  _ with was not something she had taken but given to her. And she couldn’t contain it or control it because she was never shown how. The same women who had physically made her everything she was had beat her down into everything she wasn’t. 

It wasn’t her fault. It was  _ never _ her fault. Wasn’t her fault.  _ Was not her fault. _

Clarke gripped her hair harder, to the point where she could feel every strand into her palm. It shook, her arm shook, her whole body started  _ trembling.  _

The icy heat in her core caught Clarke my surprise. She could feel the orb start to roll - rusty, but moving - inside of her. The feeling, the dusted familiarity of it, made Clarke loosen her grip on her locks. And that was not her best idea because at the same time she felt the orb’s confinements loosening, flooding her veins with the energy that doomed her seven thousand years ago. 

For some reason Clarke always thought it was blue, the color the same as a dying fire. She didn't know if her skin was blue at the moment because it definitely  _ felt  _ like it was, with as much energy pushing against her skin...trying to get out out  _ out  _ after all these years, the same way she had begged to get out, so, so  _ close _ ….

Clarke gasped in the air she didn’t know she hadn't taken, the pressure finally breaking the tension of the energy,  _ exploding. _

All of the furniture crashed at once, against the walls farthest from her. It all made a loud  _ thud _ ; one everyone in these quarters must have heard. She was shaking; her whole body quivered, from the energy that had just left it, pushing the air with such strength it moved everything with it.

She didn't want to look. Clarke didn't want to see the damage she had done,  _ again _ , with her own being. Yet another place she had ruined, yet another object that was special to someone shattered, no doubt.

But Clarke was tired, anyway. Her hand dropped from her hair and she let her legs fall to the side, where they wanted to go. There was a knock on the door behind her, but she only heard it, since her back was too numb to comprehend the vibrations. 

“Clarke, what just happened?” Octavia sounded desperate. “Are you okay?...She’s not answering, Bell.”

“Clarke! Open up!” She wanted to flinch at Bellamy’s hard voice, and equivalent knock on the door. Her chin dropped to her chest, her skull weighing it down to do so. There was another knock and a sob. 

“Bell, why isn’t she  _ answering _ ?” Clarke’s tired heart broke at Octavia’s voice, wishing she wasn’t too weak to answer. Even just for her. 

“I’m coming in, Princess,” Bellamy warned, and the door opened. The wall made a  _ shh _ noise when her shirt rubbed against it as she slid down, onto the floor. “No, O’. Just me. If something happened, I don’t want you near it.”

Something  _ had _ certainly happened. For sure. But she had dozed into another unnatural sleep before her mouth could fully form her warning, nothing but a presence is the only thing to ease her in.

 

+

  
  


 

He never realized how small she looked, until that moment. 

When Bellamy had first met his house guest, she was in such a vile state. It was the first time he was actually shown what his career was going to give him, and as much as it terrified him, Bellamy had never been more excited.

But at that moment he had to deal with what his job was that day, and that was this girl that was standing in the middle of a wreckage he walked in on her creating...he didn’t know if it was just his lack of experience with post-apocalyptic artifacts and creatures, but the way such a small girl, skin and bones, was chucking piles of books across the room with the strength of a science-fiction protagonist… it was nothing he would think anyone had ever seen. He had no idea what he walking in to, just that the voice he heard from the other side of the tunnel was weak, and reminded him too much of his sister. That was when he told Murphy to recommend the idea of going in anyway to check it out since Bellamy himself would be overlooked by Kane with his rookie position. He knew they would give up the rookie to go in the after whatever mystery they were just given, one Bellamy missed in the time it took him to retie his shoe. 

As soon as Bellamy saw the glint of the guards’ weapons as he entered he knew what they were going to do. He instantly regretted being the one to bring up the idea, secondhand or not. Because of  _ course,  _ they would just lock whatever was in there up. That’s all they do.

Bellamy stared for a moment before reacting. It took his sister’s quiet, “Bell?” to snap him out of the trace of what his room looked like, the furniture looking as if she had pushed it all away as far as possible. But his eyes settled on her, then, so fragile and... _ pale.  _ Clarke was so pale, more than usual, so gray and limp he’d assume he was looking at her corpse. What proved him wrong was her fallen wisps of hair, fluttering in response to her breath breathing slow ins and outs.

He kneeled in front of her carefully, as if not to scare her again if she did wake up, and softly placed his hand on her shoulder with the same idea. Bellamy gave her the slightest shake.

“Clarke,” he said, loosening his grasp to a hover. “Hey, Clarke.” She didn't respond. He drifted his hand to her neck, her pulse. It drummed like rain under his fingers. 

Bellamy sighed and called to the door. “You can come in. I think it's okay.”

The girls appeared at the door, Raven a step behind his sister. Octavia’s eyes were wide and worrisome, their friend behind her concerned for this new-found girl. He held out a hand, stopping Octavia before she even started. 

“She’s fine. She's just unconscious.” Octavia nodded slightly, looking at her brother and Clarke. She just then took note of the dresser pushed away from the two, beyond it to the room, with everything placed in the same prospect. 

“What...happened?” Bellamy shook his head.

“Damn. Girl’s a tough one, huh,” Raven commented, admiring the same ordinates. “Just adds to the mystery.” The siblings both look at her, and she looked back in slight surprise.

“Mystery?” Bellamy repeated, “What mystery?” 

Raven shrugged.

“I was just about to tell you until...this - interrupted. It’s what they found in her prison.”

“Wh...what did they find?” Octavia asked softly, unsure. Raven looked at them. Bellamy could see her swallow. 

“I’ll go get my laptop. Show you.” She exited the room then, leaving them alone. 

“We should…” Octavia gulped. “We should get her on the bed. Get her more comfortable.”

Like that was a command, Bellamy followed. His arms hooked under Clarke’s knees and shoulder blades as he lifted her, impossibly easily, into his hold. 

It was like carrying a cat. She felt small enough to be a kitten. 

Her head rolled against his bicep, hair tickling him. Bellamy walked to the bed softly, laying her down on her preferred side. He sat at the edge near her hip as Raven came and sat next to him, opening her laptop.

“Look at the designed. The color of the wood. Style of books. The language use.” Bellamy followed raven’s suggestions, eyes roaming around her screen with the photo of the prison. The pictures looked different than what he remembered from the place, but Bellamy blamed it on his adrenaline on his foggy memory. 

“I see them,” Bellamy said, blandly. 

“C’mon, Bellamy,” Raven emphasized, exasperated. “ _ History and Mythology major brain. _ Wake up. Those things do not match up with our time period.” 

“Nothing the patrol finds is from our time period.”

“Bellamy,” she repeated. “The files say it's not even from the same millennia as the war.” 

That caught Bellamy’s attention. Leaning back over, he could see the differences. Tiny, but different changes, like the slight way the ink on the pages were more brown in the black than blue the slight grit the paint had, the raw materials of the carpets. Raven was right.

“What is that saying, then?” There was a moment before Raven responded.

“It's not completely accurate. Because we’re still learning, it could be more, it could be less.”

“Just say it, Raven.”

“This prison...Its been there for  _ years.”  _ Raven looked up at him. “I’m talking almost seven thousand.”

“That's...not possible,” Octavia said, shifted her feet in front of them. Bellamy’s lips pressed together.

“You know it is, O’.” Still, Bellamy couldn’t think. 

“Are...are you sure she was the only one there, Bell? There wasn't anyone else?”

“If there were, these people would have found it them by now,” Raven explained.

“Well then... _how?”_ Bellamy sighed, letting his sister ask all the questions he couldn't seem to find how himself. 

“I - don't know,” Raven admitted.”Maybe there's something in the reports but...she couldn’t have been there that whole time though, right?”

“Again,” Bellamy breathed, turning to look at Clarke. “Anything is possible.”

“I’ll look at the reports. See if there is anything. But -”

Bellamy jumped as the pale, fragile face, opened into a gasp as Clarke sucked in air, opening her eyes. She was awake, her chest heaving up and down violently. She braced herself on her hands and everyone watched her look around frantically. Her eyes darted to the disassortment of the room. The fallen picture, the frame shattered. 

Clarke pushed up effortlessly to sit regularly, taking her hands into her lap. Her bandages fell off as she held her left hand up, the burns out for anyone to see. All ten of her fingertips tingled. She shuddered.

“No,” Clarke breathed, starting to shake her head. “No…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow...right?
> 
> i was a bit nervous to get all of this out right now, thinking it may be too much at once. please ask any questions regarding this chapter/ so far and ill be happy to answer them.
> 
> we got a bellamy pov!
> 
> Also, im going to aim to make all my chapters this length from now on. i already plan to extend my chapter count to 25 to be able to put in everything i want to. that may cause me to not update as frequently, though, but ill definitely try!
> 
> there also most likely will not be an update on sunday. i have a dance competition saturday-sunday, so updating will probably be impossible, and will also put me behind on chapters. 
> 
> these your thoughts below, i love hearing them!
> 
> love you all xox
> 
> thesaviorjones on tumblr


	9. truths to a second

_ CHAPTER IX _

  
  
  
  


“No? No, what?” Octavia asked. Clarke looked at her, eyes scanning for injuries. She found none. Octavia noticed and let out a breath, shaking her head. “I’m fine. We’re fine.”

“Are you?” Raven continued, unsure. Clarke's eyes were wild, peeling between all of them. What Octavia said looked true; no one seemed hurt. But the furniture was a  _ mess, _ and multiple things were on the ground.She felt so guilty, being the one causing the mess. Being a mess. 

Clarke closed her eyes and put her head in her hand, covering her face with her fingers. She shook her head; more out of trying to get all of the stupidity out of her mind than saying No.

“Hey.”  a hand touched Clarke's arm and she flinched. The hand was the same warmth as the voice, her guilty increased. “Clarke,” Bellamy said softly. “What happened?”

She grasped her scalp as tightened her eyes. “Nothing I can explain,” she whispered.

“You need to explain some of it, at least.” she could feel his breath brush her skin, sending chills. Clarke imagined his eyes wide like they usually were. 

“I owe you that much, don't I?” there was a soft chuckle.

“Probably. But just what we want to know.” 

Clarke opened her eyes to the blanket. She lifted them to where she could see Bellamy, finding him exactly how her mind thought she would. “What do you mean?”

“We saw the file today. We know you’re not from this...time period.”

Clarke's brows furrowed. “You didn’t before?” Bellamy’s lip turned up a little too much for anyone not to notice. 

“We just want to get some clarification,” Raven picked up from Bellamy. Clarke nodded, resting her eyes down. 

“Okay.”

 

+

 

The staring was daunting, no matter how much everyone tried to avoid it. Clarke felt hot and she thought her face was red. Maybe pink, at least. It happened when she was nervous.

_ Nervous _ . She had no idea why she was. Clarke had been open to telling them since the beginning… she had  _ tried _ . Seven thousand times around the sun was enough time to fully come up with the story, too. Not that she'd make it up. But I t was so detailed if she wanted it to be, and Clarke wanted everyone to know every bit of what her mother had put her through. She had practiced her title, her biography, the explanation of what she knew of her power, the forced trial her mother held for her imprisonment. It was all down to perfection, and she could cite it like a play’s ancient script. 

But it didn't seem right, now. 

Clarke didn't exactly know why. Maybe it was because she hadn't ever actually rehearsed it in any way other her on her throne, administering her recitations to a court. Larke never thought to think of it differently. She had thought that her title would say who she was bound to be, the lost princess from her family portrait who dissolved into nothing after an incident. 

Thinking of it, though, her mother probably erased any sense of her existence as soon as that iron door sealed. Self-portraits, family portraits; anything consisting of Clarke’s face. Her painted works were no doubt plastered over or canvases used for firewood. She don't ever ignore the distasteful twinge on her mother's lips when her paint was found distributed where it wasn't ‘approved’ to be. In fact, Clarke thrived from it. In her own opinion, a scowl at the pretty birds and dainty flowers was far more amusing than an almost-compliment on warm flames wrapping up pillars. PAinting fire would always relieve Clarke’s irritation that her mother’s opinions prevailed, but she was willing to sacrifice her satisfaction to see the lack thereof on the dear Empress.

“Where do i...start?” she felt all her practiced words flood out her ears, fleeing from the speech what they were organized to do for all this time. 

“Look at this file.” Clarke dropped her eyes to a parchment - multiple, neatly stacked, handed to her by Raven. “We just want you to explain it all.”

“Explaining would help...a lot,” Octavia clarified. Clarke looked at her to nod and started reading the block print.

**File 6.9.44** **7 July 8856** **PNACP PROTECTED**

 

**LOCATION: COORDINATES X5667.765 Y54334.54333**

 

**DATE FOUND: 5 July 8856**

 

**DATE INVESTIGATED: 6 July 8856**

 

**PATROL SECTOR: 17TH Q.**

 

**ID: 53IF85762HDR41**

 

**AREA DESCRIPTION:**

 

**ABOUT 700 FEET UNDER MOUNTAIN. LONG HALLWAY OF UNKNOWN METAL. LEADS TO IRON DOOR. IRON DOOR INDESTRUCTIBLE (SEE PAGE 6 FOR FULL ANALYSIS). DOOR OPENS TO OPEN AREA. FLOOR OF WOOD, PRESUMED OAK. EATING QUARTERS FOUND ON LEFT, LIVING ON THE RIGHT, LONG HALLWAY BETWEEN. HIDDEN DOOR, AT END TO RIGHT. ROOM OF PAINTED CANVASES FOUND BEHIND IT. SMALL SLEEPING AREA ON DOOR IN HALLWAY TO LEFT.  PAINT COVERS ENTIRE INTERIOR INCLUDING FURNITURE. FOOD STORAGE FOUND ATTACHED TO EATING AREA.**

 

**DETAILIC NOTES:**

 

**-EVERYTHING BROKEN: PREVIOUS CONDITION SEEMED NEW**

**-WOOD PRESUMED OAK - EXTINCT FIND #7989**

**-CLOTH UNKNOWN - EXTINCT FIND #7990**

**-DYE IN PAINT; PRE-NA - EXTINCT FIND #7991**

**-MEDICINAL KIT: DESTROYED FOR UNKNOWN AMOUNT OF YEARS. TESTING STILL EVALUATING.**

 

**AFTER INVESTIGATION: OFFICER F.6453 STATES OBJECTS ARE DATED BEFORE N.A. 4698.**

 

**AFTER INVESTIGATION: ARCH. JP 4324 STATES STYLE DATE TO <6,000 YEARS.**

 

**AFTER INVESTIGATION: DR. KO5432 STATES DAMAGE DONE TO OBJECTS NOT POSSIBLY DONE BY HUMAN.**

 

**SEARCH TEAM INFERRED 8 JULY 8856 INTO AREA TO FIND CREATURE**

 

**SEARCH TEAM RETURN 11 JULY 8856 AND STATE NO TRACE OF CREATURE IS TRACKED.**

**11 JULY 8856: AREA RETIRED UNTIL FURTHER INTEL FOUND.**

 

**PATROL STATEMENT:**

 

**CUT OUT FIRST DOOR FOUND OUTSIDE MOUNTAIN. WALK 550 PACES DOWN TAVERN TO IRON DOOR. ASKED FOR SOMEONE TO OPEN ONCE. RECEIVED NO ANSWER. USED FIRST-CLASS DRILL AED 323.8. UNRESPONSIVE.**

**OFFICERS HEARD VOICE FROM INSIDE (SEE PAGE 4 FOR REPORTED DIALOGUE). WERE INSTRUCTED TO POUR LIQUID OVER KNOB. LIQUID FOUND AT TOP OF DOOR FRAME: FULL DESCRIPTION PAGE 5. WHEN POURED, REPORTS CLAIM A PURPLE SHIMMER WENT DOWN HALLWAY.**

**OFFICER TG5903 OPENED DOOR ESTIMATED TWO INCHES. A FACE, FEMININE, PEAKED INTO CRACK. OFFICERS FOLLOW PROTOCOL AND PROCEED TO CLOSE DOOR. THE BEING STOPPED IT FROM CLOSING BY GUARDING WITH HER FINGERS. OFFICER AK9429 CLAIMS DOOR WAS BURNING THE FINGERS.**

**QUADRANT FOLLOWED PROTOCOL AND CLOSED THE DOOR. DISCUSSED DECISIONS. FULL DIALOGUE ON PAGE 9.**

**CADET BB 0005 VOTED IN TO LEAD QUADRANT INSIDE/CHECK FOR SAFETY DRILLS. THE DOOR’S KNOB WAS NOT HOT TO THE TOUCH.**

**ROOMS INSIDE FOUND DESTROYED. ITEMS LATER DATING FARTHEST THAN PNACP SCAVENGED. GIRL FOUND IN ROOM UNKNOWN ROOM, CADET BB0005 CLAIMS, DAMAGE TOO UNRECOGNIZABLE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IT WAS. BELIEVED TO BE LIVING QUARTERS. FOLLOWED ORDERS AND BROUGHT GIRL TO THE OPENING WITHOUT FUSS.**

  
  
  


**FIRST STATEMENT DRAFT CLOSED.**

 

Clarke felt turning the page would overwhelm her somehow more than she already found herself. It was so formal, but so bland - she couldn't compare that statement to any court documents she recalled. The other perspective was daunting as well, more than ever, but she had found herself wanting to ask the questions, not answer them. She didn't even know what to answer.

Octavia must have noticed her small panic, her race of emotions speeding around her head as soon as her hand released the paper the slightest. Her hand found Clarke's wrist.

“Just tell us what happened that day. As much as you can remember.”

“I remember all of it,” she rasped. The people around Clarke now felt constricting...everyone was a hair too close. She inches her way back until she hit the headboard. She stopped as it rocked against the wall behind it. 

Octavia inhaled and gave her a little nod. “Okay.”

Clarke relaxed in her position against the board, slumping her spine, arching her neck so the base of her skull weighed against the wall and headboard. Seeing the ceiling was boring, one solid, smooth color, Clarke closed her eyes.

She inhaled through her nose. She felt her heart beat once, twice, three times, four, before holding her exhale out her mouth, cold, chilly air breezing the chapped skin.

“I was waiting for three thousand years for something to happen,” she started. Tension flooded the room immediately, like everyone took one breath in, sucking the freshest hair...ink dropped in water, clouded comfort. “I kept a tally every single day. It was pathetic, frankly.”

Her throat was already scratchy, her tongue overwhelmed by how much spit was filling her mouth so quickly, so unused to talking that it forgot how to work itself when she did.

“My sentence was four thousand years. Four thousand years in ‘solitude’, how my mother would probably sugar coat it.” Clarke peaked an eye open. “She wasn't much a mother, don’t worry.

“I told you, Octavia and Bellamy, who I actually am.  _ Princess Clarke Of Arcadia, first daughter in the fifth generation of the Griffin royal family,”   _ she smiled distastefully. “Hell of a mouthful, huh?”

“Just a bit,” Bellamy said. She wanted to smile at his effort. She didn't.

“Well, it doesn't look like it matters much now. Which I don’t mind at all. Maybe it did four thousand years ago when I was supposed to come out, but surprise; they seemed to forget about the ancient princess trapped in an immortal prison.”

“Immortal prison?” Raven’s voice asked. There was a huff. “Sounds like some old comic.”

“Don’t underestimate the queen,” Clarke said, the saying having a weird familiarity on her tongue. It was a phrase found spoken in her kingdom a lot, in the court meetings, but it soon became an insult to her mother rather than reassurance. By the time that happened, Clarke was honestly too frightened to see what the outcome would be if she spoke it herself, even in the privacy of her quarters.

“When she locked me up, she cast a barrier on the outside that would protect the interior from anything and everything; erosion, weather...time.” Clarke let the silence fill the room until it was a bit too much to bear. She opened her mouth to speak, but Octavia beat her to it.

“...How?” Clarke let out a small laugh; more like a sharp exhale with a smile attached.

“She got the good genes when it came to...power. In more ways than one.” Clarke breathed and pushed herself up, opening her eyes to face everyone. “I, on the other hand, am the opposite.  My power is...rough. And I will never be able to a kingdom. Ever.”

“I’m sorry... _ power _ ? What do you mean?” Clarke looked at Raven as she asked the question. Clarke gave her an acidic smile.

“The royal family got their power to rule by  _ having _ a power. It was seen as a gift sent from the Angels. To heal, to protect.” a pause filled with nothing but soft breathing. “And then I was born and given the opposite.

“People saw me as a threat. My mother did, mostly, but id like to think it was more so to protect her ego than her people. She didn't let me train, afraid it would get stronger -” she let out a laugh. “Strong enough to overrule her before she was forced into retirement. So I was left on my own to control something I didn't know. Well, as expected, there was an incident.” she looked around her company, all wide faces. “And that was the end of my chances.”

“So  _ she  _ locked you up? To force you to control it?” Clarke shook her head at Octavia’s attempt at clarification. 

“Barely. The barrier also protected the interior from me.” Clarke crossed her legs, getting antsy at the blue energy crawling back into her veins. Her eyes started to droop.

“Is that what...this was?” Bellamy started to ask. She assumed he was talking about the disarrangement of the room. She nodded her head, leaning it on her shoulder. It stretched her neck muscles a pleasant deal.

“Once that barrier was open...everything is back.” her breathing became deeper, relaxing...she could feel her muscles loosen. “Everything I didn't use...its back.”

“ - Ey, Clarke….wake up,” Bellamy said softly, shaking her shoulder. Light returned behind her eyelids as she opened them again. He was close to her, catching her internally off guard. “YOu okay?”

She nodded, actual, human energy coming back into her body. “Using it tires me out. Even if I don’t want to.” 

Bellamy nodded. “That’s fine. I'm going to call Maya, tell her what’s going on. I want you awake for it. Then you can sleep.” 

Clarke nodded.

He left his spot in front of her, opening the door and crossed to the low table.

 

+

 

“Seven thousand years?”

“It was supposed to be three thousand, but I think the apocalypse happened and people lost knowledge,” Bellamy added. Maya was on a small screen, a moving painting over and over and over. “We sent you the file over.”

“Clarke, what were your meals like?” Clarke looked up from her hands, the ointment new and slippery on her palm. She pretended to think for a moment. 

“Normal rations for the original sentence. But I had to split slot to make it double the time.”

“And another thousand,” Maya clarified. Clarke nodded. She wrote something down behind her side and then looked off to the side, scanning something Clarke herself couldn't see. “I think I have a diagnosis.”

The room perked up a bit more than they were before. Raven adjusted her seating, scooching more into a=the crescent Octavia and Bellamy formed around Clarke. 

“From the math and reports, it would seem anyone in there would have to go under extreme conservation to not starve within the time they were locked up and released.” Clarke nodded in agreement. “I assumed she ate as usual before her release date passed, presupposing that would be the end of it. So Clarke had to only live on the extra food she was given. For awhile.” Clarke closed her eyes in remembrance, calling back to attempting the math back when she first realized her situation. “The only way that what work was to only accept herself to…” she wrote something down. “...six point three grams per day.”

“Try every four days,” Clarke muttered. Everyone turned to her, each individual gaze creating a crater in her flesh. “I didn't know how long I would be in there.”

“...right,” Maya stuttered, uneasily. She cleared her throat. “Living on that little for that long...even just a few months is pushing it. I believe she’s vomiting simply because her body doesn’t know how to keep it down.”

“So how do we fix it?” Octavia leaned forward.

“Start small. Double the grams every two days, then triple, and so on. Change every week or about three to four cycles.”

“Maya…” Bellamy started. Clarke looked up at him, his heat suddenly traveling to her skin. “We don't know how long we have.”

“I know that. Do it until you can't.”

Bellamy went to end the call. “Bellamy, wait.” He did. Clarke continued to lay back, to let her body relax a bit before her power made her ill. She didn’t know how to cure that, not in the time period. “What she went through, it is not normal. She needs trust. Don’t close the door on her.”

Clarke didn’t know if Maya meant for her to hear, but she didn’t care, honestly. Maya was right. It  _ was _ messed up, and she may have known that in the beginning. How to fix it, Clarke doesn't know. So taking other’s ideas were a good start.

 

+

 

When Clarke woke up, it was quiet. She was able to stare at the ceiling for some minutes, not listening in to conversations on the other side of the door.

In fact, when Clarke glanced at the door, she found it opened. Clarke got up and walked to it, peering at the other side. 

Bellamy was horizontal on the cushions, a thick book in front of him. She went to read the cover but both the front and back were covered in gold designs, swirls and shapes reminding Clarke of many of the books she had in the library of the prison. His face was covered by it and she doubted he realized she was in the doorway. Clarke faked a cough, leaning against the frame. Bellamy lowered his book.

“Feel better?” she nodded. “That's good.” he sat up, marking his page and setting it on the mess of a table in front of his, adding it to the piles. “You..hungry?”

Clarke shook her head, although she had to suck in her stomach to keep it from growling at the offer. She pushed off the frame to circle around the table sitting next to him. He rested his elbows on his knees and turned to look at her with a casual gaze.  She followed.

His eyelashes were really long, and it kind of annoyed Clarke. Her father said she did, too, but being blond they disappeared in the sun. there was no sun in this room, though, and she could see Bellamy’s clearly. He could probably see hers, too. 

Everything about his was exaggerated. Really long lashes, really curly hair, the  _ countless _ amount of freckles. his eyes weren’t just doey, they were  _ really _ doey, and his cheekbones were high and then some. An enhanced portrait living itself. it made her scalp and ears and fingertips tingle.

She noticed they were both staring. He maybe was taking in what was too little or too much of her, no doubt not finding the perfect balance she had. It was too long of a minute.

Clarke gestured to the mess. “What are you doing?” 

He followed her gesture and smiled a bit, picking the book he was reading up from the pile. 

“Taking advantage of the quiet hours during O’s shift at the lab.” He held it out to her, and Clarke took it with careful hands. “Reading for my class.”

“What class?” she took the pages and skimmed through them all between her thumb. There were a few notes written in the margins.

“Ancient History. The P-N-A-C-P pays for it, and passing the class will give me better chances at becoming chief one day. And I learn about things that interest me.” Clarke looked him over again. 

“How old are you?” He took the book from her hands and returned to his position, looking at her. 

“Twenty three. O’s nineteen.” He paused for a minute. “I would ask how old you are, but…” 

Clarke gave him a small smile. “I was eighteen.” He gave her a single understanding nod. He looked beyond her.

“O’ is going to be home soon.you should probably go take a shower before she uses up all of our fresh water.” She knew this was his way of telling her he really needed to get something done by the way he avoided her gaze as his eyes scanned his table, looking for something he really didn’t need.she wanted to laugh because in such the short time they had been around each other, and the even shorter expanse that they had been tolerating one another, she knew his quirks and how he was bad at keeping what he didn’t want to show. Clarke wondered what he had figured out from her so far. If it was as much as her scroll.

Clarke looked towards the door quickly before standing. She started to walk away, seeing Bellamy open his book back to his marked spot behind her when she turned. He looked up at her.

“Do you...have any other books?” 

Keeping his eyes on her, Bellamy stood up, forgetting his book and dropping it. Her head followed him as he walked to her, and kept walking towards the room she had been staying in. he led her with his hand warm on her mid back. Her mind flinched at his contact, despite his unnecessary touches and leads in the past, and he led her past the messy bed and the detailed paintings. He stopped in front of the closet, a shingled door, and Clarke did too.

His hand reached and gripped the small knob, folding the doors to reveal the inside.

There was a row of dark clothes on the inside. Clarke ran her hand across them like she would with her fingertips against book spines, finding multiple soft textures.

“Whose clothes are these?” the question came before she was able to process it.

“Mine,” Bellamy responded, a bit confused.

“ _ Yours?!” _ She turned to him, finding Bellamy a bit stunned. “I've been sleeping in your room this whole time?!”

He furrowed his brows, confusion lining his forehead. “Whose room did you think you’ve been in?”

“I thought it was a guest room, or...something.” Frankly, she never really thought about it, but that was the first and most reliable option she found her mind thinking. It  _ was _ instinct. The palace always had open rooms for emergencies, and she wasn’t ever exposed to anything different.

“No, princess. My room.”

“Where have you been sleeping?”

“Night shifts. I sleep in O’s during the day.” Clarke turned back to the closet.

“I don’t see any books.” she scoured the space one more time. 

Bellamy took a step forward and reached a wooden box that read  _ Winter Clothes - B. _ Clarke watched his arms flex as he took the box off the top shelf and swallowed.

As he placed it on the floor, she looked inside. There was a jacket folded on top, brown and blue and shinier than the coats she had seen in the past. As he kneeled in front of it, Clarke was going to state her obvious, that she did not see any books, but then he lifted the jacket. 

Her lips parted into a pathetic gape as three whole rows of books appeared, maybe fifteen or twenty assorted colored spines each column. 

“Authorities don’t exactly appreciate more than a few books being in our possessions. I have to hide some.” Clarke didn’t say anything, but didn't a graceless plop to the ground next to the box, fingers roaming the ridges. Bellamy’s hands braced the sides and she found him watching her wonder and she looked up at him. A brilliant fuchsia color called to her, yellow font squared on the space, and she slipped her fingers through the thin cracks to pull it out. 

She thumbed through it, watching the words and paragraphs and chapters zip past.Clarke found herself on her feet, flipping to the first chapter, reading _ new sentences _ and  _ stories _ .

“Did you read that before?” his voice followed her as she propped herself on the

bed -  _ his  _ bed. She shook her head quickly. “Do you know what it's about?”

“No, Bellamy.  _ Go work _ .”

She could imagine him dropping his head as she heard a chuckle. Soon enough, she saw him leaving the room with the door open through her peripheral. He fell into his book right before she did it hers.

+

 

Soon after Octavia came home, Bellamy left. Clarke was grateful that Octavia was “in the mood to bake cookies,” as she said, and Clarke was able to read until dark with only small clashes disturbing her. The writing was different from so long ago but impeccable in some way, the author simply describing things in the most beautiful ways. She couldn't get enough of it and thought about moving into the living area where there was light so she could finish the second half. But Clarke could tell it was late by how Octavia was settling down and reading so much usually gave her migraines from all of her theories. Back in the prison, when she still had new books to read, Clarke would always sleep on it, and so that made it the most understandable choice.

The rooms all were quiet when Clarke slipped under the covers, each vein finally weighing her down into the mattress, telling her it was time to sleep. 

But then the other side of the bed dipped, and Clarke knew Octavia was there. She sighed as Clarke assumed she laid back.

“I didn’t know this was Bellamy’s room,” Clarke said. She heard Octavia’s amused breath. 

“I know. He told me. I think its funny.” There was a pregnant silence following.

“For the record,  I think your story is cool. I have a lot of questions but Bell told me to wait.” 

“You can ask some if you want.” Clarke watched a breeze ruffle the curtain.

“Okay, well…” Clarke smile in the darkness at the thought of Octavia’s questions. Did she really have a younger mind than Octavia, before all that had happened? “Are you still immortal?”

“I don’t think so,” Clarke responded. She had been thinking about that a lot often, actually. “I think now that the barrier is down, everything will resume in time.” 

Or it would catch up with it. Clarke didn’t want to think of it but knew that would be realistic. It held everything up over half the time it was supposed to. She had no idea what was to come next because of that; it very well might end in everything deteriorating in age, including Clarke. She had thought about it for years. It was scary, but she had no way of knowing.

“You must be some confused,” Octavia breathed. “I was thinking about it today. I would be if I were even from one hundred years ago. Seven thousand is a long time.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“I’m going to help you tomorrow. I’m going to explain everything that is not in the prison you were in. I have off, so I can do it.” Clarke wanted to ask if Bellamy had off, knowing it would annoy him. She kind of...wanted to, though. For the fun of, watch him hide how vexed he really was. So she responded simply.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys got alot of information again, sorry. please ask quesstions if needed. 
> 
> im back to my regular posting and will update again on sunday!
> 
> love you all, leave comments if you want!
> 
> xox


	10. merging in contruction

_ CHAPTER X _

  
  
  
  


Octavia had lived up to what she promised the night before, and Clarke barely had enough time to stretch her stiff limbs before she came bouncing in the room. Octavia claimed they didn’t have a lot of time before Bellamy came home and they’d need to be quiet.

She showed Clarke a lot. Normally Clarke would feel very much overwhelmed by so much information in such a short amount of time, but she had been around these things for quite some time now...a few weeks, she presumed. Clarke had seen everything became aware of some of the uses. It was just a matter of putting names to them.

The marble was part of a kitchen, and the medium box worked like a furnace. The one next to it, the taller one, was labeled as a refrigerator and it kept food cold. A comm worked like a personal, instant letter and the loveseats had just gotten much more comfortable and soft. The incredibly detailed paintings were not actually painting but a picture, something taken by a camera that kept it like an immediate painting that would be kept forever.

The TV, that was filled with countless programs that told stories like they were all plays she was able to watch.

Soon enough Clarke was able to return to her book in solitude, reminding Octavia about Bellamy usually being hungry when he returned from his job. She read with the music of clangs and sizzling in the background as Octavia prepared their brunch rations. The noises would usually disrupt Clarke’s focus, so used to nothing but empty, familiar air around her, but the book she had picked was so thrilling. She didn’t know what it was, or if the book was actually  _ awful _ and her liking was just a result of being starved for new phrases, but Clarke wasn’t able to stop, not even to theorize or analyze the deeper meaning within it. Clarke just read, and read, and read.

By the time there was that beep from the foyer she had become accustomed to hearing whenever Octavia or Bellamy arrived back, Clarke was almost two thirds through. Her eyes were raw and her head felt full, so she marked the book to see if anything interesting had become of during Bellamy’s shift.

He was collapsing on the couch when Clarke opened the door, it is closed for some quiet from the sounds of cooking. She scanned his body and diagnosed his collapse was from exhaustion from the way his limbs had since relaxed and sat on the couch opposite to him to cross her arms and watch. Octavia was still busied in the kitchen, probably hurrying now that Bellamy was home and her shift was soon.

“Security is going a little nuts,” Bellamy said, eyes closed. They are starting the drill all of us.”

“Why?” Octavia asked, looking up from separating the meals onto slates. 

“Our Princess has that effect.” Octavia laughed. 

“Princess? That's what we're calling her?” 

Clarke looked down at her hands, not exactly seeing where she could fit into the conversation. Her instinct had come back, like the family dinners where she'd find herself eating silently as her parents discussed political plans through a tube of pure, strong tension above her.

There wasn’t any tension here, though.

“Well, that's what she is,” Bellamy gestured. Clarke looked at him to find Bellamy's eyes looking at her playfully. “Right?”

Clarke nodded shyly, diverting her line of sight.

“Fine, call her what you want. What do you mean? They’re looking for her?”

“More like wanting to know where the hell she had gone.” Octavia paused.

“Should we be worried?” but Bellamy shook his head.

“I'll keep a closer look at what they have on her and behavioral changes. We'll go with how we should feel after that.”

Octavia nodded. Clarke, on the other hand, took a deep breath. She had no reason to worry. she was safe with them. She was pretty sure she could trust them.

Pretty sure.

 

+

 

At the sound of the door’s  _ click _ , Bellamy turned to Clarke. 

“How did you like the book?” Clarke relaxed. He was sitting up then, leaning over his elbows which were placed on his knees. 

“I didn’t finish it,” Clarke responded. A smile formed on half of his mouth. 

“Let me rephrase. How are you liking the book?”

And just like that, Clarke was consumed.

“It’s different.”

“How different?” Bellamy’s smirk gave her a challenge. Clarke rolled her eyes, perking up a bit. 

“Give me a second, Bell.”

“ _ Bell?” _ she heard his smile, even when she closed her eyes. “If I get a nickname from you, too, you need to be more creative.”

“ _ Bellamy. _ ” Clarke wanted to explain the book. She wanted to so, so bad. Explain this one, as well as every single one she rehearsed her book talks with that stupid pillow for thousands of years. But then, at that moment, something Clarke had been wanting for hundreds of years too many around the sun, she could hold off. If it was for this careless, childish banter, Clarke wanted to hold on it. Because she never laughed in her book talks, not even for the comedy plays. But right then, Clarke wanted to laugh at  _ nothing _ , at someone else’s face that was perfect in an obnoxious way.

she refrained herself, though, hiding the hint of her expression behind her blond tendrils, looking at Bellamy through her eyelashes as he rubbed his hands together.

“Alright,” he joked. “Why is it different, Clarke?” she held back her comment on his lack of use of her nickname.

Clarke sighed. “The writing style. It's so much easier to comprehend, and it lets the mind… think - without needing to put in as much effort. It serves as a nice ease way, too, since I've been reading same stories for such a long time.

“The characters are also so much more independent - they aren't letting the plot happen to them as much as they make the plot themselves. I appreciate. It disbands the reasoning on how to go about whatever life you have.to do things for yourself, and stop things a person may not want to happen.” Clarke let out a short, quick breath, her heart thudding hard against her skin.she felt hot as she looked at Bellamy, whose eyes looked like what she felt, surprised and winded and wanting more. 

“Nice analysis,” he said blandly. 

Clarke nodded. “Yeah. I had...a lot of practice.”

“In your -”

“I had a whole library,” she interrupted quickly. “But it ran out after the years it was supposed to last. Only thing I could do was reread them.” Bellamy thought for a moment.

“Are they still there?” Clarke’s brows furrowed.

“Most likely...why?”

“I...they would be a great use to this book I plan on writing -”

“ _ You,”  _ Clarke let out a laugh. “Are planning to write a book.”

“You’d be surprised, Princess.” 

She was smiling now - a pitiful amount. “On what?” Laughs shook her words.

“Ancient literature.” Clarke’s laughs subsided. “They would be great references.”

“Rare references, too?” 

“Yeah,” Bellamy breathed, realizing. “Very rare.”

He walked over to where she sat on the couch. “Can you write down a list of your favorites?” 

“That would be long.” Bellamy smiled.

“Write it. So when we go pick them up, it'll be easier to look.” 

Clark turned cold. “ _ What?” _

Bellamy’s smile expanded. “We're gonna get the books, Princess.”

“But - how?” he took a deep breath. “Give me a few days.”

“Does...does this mean -”

“Yes, Clarke. You’ll be able to see the sun.”

+

 

Bellamy left Clarke alone after he had his dinner; He ate it across from her rather than at the table. Clarke had since picked her book back up, determined to finish before the sunset, or perhaps before Bellamy left her to her own devices. But he went to wash up and sleep soon after straightening the spot where he ate without her doing so. Clarke understood; she more wanted to tease him for shuffling around, but she took Octavia's advice in not disrupting his sleeping schedule at  _ all.  _

Her goal was succeeded a half hour before the sun’s orange glow disappeared into a blue shimmer through the curtains. With the thought of actually seeing the sun again, Clarke was surprised to finish at all, but she convinced herself distractions would kill the time until Bellamy would wake up and be able to form a plan for it all the work. The apartment was quiet as she thumbed through the pages once more, sighing deeply and taking the scent in one last time. Words fluttered by, those who produced new inspiration in Clarke's mind.

She closed the pages together, looking up from where she sat on the bed and contemplated. Should she start another book then? Where should she put this one? Bellamy was going to have to wake up soon. The clock was nearing the time Octavia would be arriving home, depending on what Clarke had noticed in the past, and that meant Bellamy was going to leave again soon. The day had gone by fast, Clarke must’ve admitted; even though she did nothing but read, the pages swept swiftly, going in the same pattern the sun did.

And the Octavia came home. Bellamy took a shower and left, and Clarke started the beginning chapters in the bed space.

Sometime later, the rooms were too dark for Clarke to read, just like the night before. She climbed under the pillows and blankets and quilts with tired eyes when Octavia came in the room to do the same.

Clarke paused. “Why are you here?”

“Believe me,” Octavia said, turning to Clarke. “I feel just as weird, sleeping in my brother’s bed. But you need a friend.” 

“Maya put you up to this.” Octavia paused again.

“It was her idea. I just expanded on it, seeing how much better you slept last night.” she noticed Clarke’s expression, a little off-put. Octavia tilted her head. “You weren’t ever that quiet, you know.” 

Clarke laughed one real breath of one, and continued to get settled, hearing Octavia do the same on the other side of the bed. She turned to the window, closing her eyes with a smile, sleeping with ease and little doubt she’d wake with a slit throat. 

 

+

The cycle for that repeated. Clarke would wake up to Octavia making breakfast, eat the little she gave her, and read. Bellamy would come back from his night shift and they would have a small, scripted conversation, and he would give any updates on the security sectors’ sanity if there was any. He spoke nothing about the books they planned to take. Clarke doubted Octavia had yet to know in the first place. And then she'd read through the day as he slept and Octavia was gone. When Octavia would get home she would make Clarke a smaller portion of the rations they had, slowly working her up to a regular meal, as Clarke was able to tell. When she slept Octavia slept beside her, and some of her nightmares that would occur came to a halt most nights. All was the same, and it was content.

She knew she would run out of books sometime, but Clarke didn’t want to think of that. Nor the fact that when she did, what Clarke had done to her hand erased any hope to paint the characters, or the scenes, or the stories, or their inspiration. But Clarke did  _ not  _ want to think of that.

This... _ routine _ the three of them had come up with lasted several days with no deficiency. But with the things being the same, Clarke started to notice things were getting different. 

As Clarke ate they would not, at least not consistently; pausing every time Clarke took another bite. Her focus would subside as she read when a gaze would be sensed at the crown of her head or the crinks between her brows. The stories Octavia told her before they slept turned into reassurances on how Clarke felt with them if she needed anything more than they had already given her. It was odd and a bit off-putting rather than the comfort the siblings were most likely aiming for. The behavior came to a point in which Clarke was going to ask them about what had caused it when Bellamy brought the reason up. 

“How would you feel about our friends coming over, Clarke?” he asked one evening, right as she finished a chapter in their living quarters. She looked up to where he leaned against the kitchen’s marble counter. 

“Like a…”

“For game night,” he responded prematurely. 

“Game night,” Clarke repeated, setting her closed book in her lap. “What do games qualify as, this millennium? Because for me that means archery tournaments.”

Bellamy smirked at her answer, raking his hair off his face - if Clarke was right, he ought to have a cut soon.

“Board games. Like chess, but more childish and double the competition.” Clarke smiled a bit at the description, remembering what her father would gamble on his chess games, how her mother would refrain from letting her play herself. The intensity, her mother had claimed, would run Clarke’s nerves mad, and there always seemed to be a new chess set so they had a reason for her powers to be dangerous in some way. They wouldn’t want the new brass ruined. 

“Okay,” Clarke approved, nodding. Bellamy smiled, showing his teeth to her in excitement. 

Octavia opened the front door as soon as Bellamy started to circle to counter to Clarke, mouth about to form words as Octavia interrupted. 

“What did she say, Bell?” Octavia rushed out, kicking off her boots. “Did she say it's okay?”

Bellamy paused where he was standing, letting Octavia run through first to avoid colliding. 

“She said it’s fine,” he answered her. Octavia’s smile clearly said it was her idea as she knelt in front of Clarke.

“Clarke, it's going to be so much fun. Raven and Maya are coming, which will be great. And I'm pretty sure you'll like Emori. She's pretty stubborn, so you guys can relate to each other at least.” looking over Octavia’s shoulders, Clarke caught Bellamy putting an exasperated hand to his face. But it didn’t hide his smile lines creasing, and Clarke’s own lips tightened when the end of them pulled up. “And there’s Murphy, Jasper, and Monty. The guys; that's all you need to know.”

Clarke nodded at her, not really knowing what to say. 

“How...exactly will this work, with your work schedules?”

“O’ and I change our shifts once a month. It means working double in the next week, but wait until you see this. It’s worth it.”

 

+

 

An hour before the small hand of the clock reached the seven, Octavia showered and Bellamy started to cook something. He gave Clarke quick instructions to finish any book she would want to or brush her hair if she didn’t want others to do it first. Taking his advice Clarke gave herself a quick braid after running her fingers through her strands and finished her chapter in a good spot. 

Bellamy was just pulling his tray out of the oven when a knock came, followed by an inviting,  _ “Open up, you bastard of a man!”  _ in a man’s voice, not nearly as deep as Bellamy’s. Bellamy looked back at Clarke, who had been watching him check his meet, and with a quick understanding nod, Clarke took his spot as he shrugged off the oven mitts.

“Just evenly spread out the vegetables, and then use all the spices in those bowls. Doesn’t matter what order,” he instructed Clarke, heading to the door. Clarke followed his directions, placing the yellow and green and red slices in the creases of the meats. To the left of her, where the front door was, Bellamy opened it to an echo of cheers and footsteps. Figures entered through the corner of Clarke’s eye, and she looked up quickly in the midst of arranging the peppers. 

“This the girl you’ve been holdin’?” someone said as soon as Bellamy closed the door. A second goes by before Clarke felt a hand on her shoulder. 

“I got it,” Bellamy told her, his breath once again hot on her jaw. Clarke backed away, finally looking up to see the apartment’s guests. “This is Murphy and Emori, Clarke. They like to come early.” 

“It gives us an early start. To see what the competition is like.”

“Yeah, yeah, we got it. Go get the games out since you’re here.”  they disappeared into Octavia’s bedroom, Clarke's eyes following them as they had a conversation with each other under their breath. Bellamy started to speak to her as their voices faded off. “If you feel...uncomfortable - at any moment, tell us, alright? It can be a lot.”

“I’ll be fine, Bellamy.” he turned to her then, worried brows hidden under his hair, curly and loose from the gel he put in for work. 

A few minutes after seven the door knocked again, and Maya came in with, who Clarke was introduced to, Jasper. Octavia had since come out of the shower when the last bunch arrived, Octavia opening the door to see Raven file in, her expression tight, with another person behind her. His hair was long and a fair brown, his cheeks seemingly still a bit plump from when he was a boy. Octavia didn’t seem that happy about his appearance, and Bellamy grasped Raven’s arm. Before he could question, Raven responded. “I tried to leave him, Bellamy. Why do you think I’m late?” Raven locked eyes with Clarke, giving her a small smile before zipping past. 

The young man walked over to where Clarke and Bellamy had been standing; in the aisle between the kitchen’s island and counter.  He was all smiles as he looked at Clarke, who glanced at Bellamy above her. She spent enough times observing the angles of Bellamy’s face to know he was not exactly content, his welcoming ease messily etched into the muscles of his face. 

“I’m Finn. You’re Clarke, right?” Not knowing if she should have smiled, Clarke closed her gaping mouth and nodded. The hand he reached to grasp hers was his left, meaning she would have to use her injured hand to shake his; Clarke pretended she didn’t see it. “Interesting story with you, huh.” 

Clarke took the tiniest step closest to Bellamy. She shoulder connect with his bicep, and the contact administered a shiver as chills erupted down her arm, across her chest. 

He stepped forward, causing Finn to back away. Clarke followed him into the living quarters. 

“Let’s do this,” Bellamy said, sitting in front of a board laid on the low table. Everyone had since circled around. Clarke kneeled carefully next to Bellamy, Finn taking his own invitation to squeeze in next to her. 

“Let game night begin,” Jasper announced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry for a skipped update and short, shitty chapter. i was rereading my pre-written chapters and i really just want to plan everything out clearly.
> 
> that being said, im taking a small, tiny break. 
> 
> my next update will not be until Sunday, march 18th. lets hope we have the season five trailer by then.
> 
> i wanted to put one last chapter out here before the hiatus just to update you guys and not leave it for thought, so this chapter is only a few thousand words. apologies. i also live on the east coast, and if you guys haven't heard we've been having a bunch of snowstorms aka no power.
> 
> maybe this chapter is better in readers eyes, and if so its a miracle. comment what you think may be coming!
> 
> thanks for the patience, its appreciated. 
> 
> xox


	11. friends and foes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke talks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back up and running! heres a 5.5k chapter.

_ CHAPTER VI _

  
  
  
  
  
  


Clarke was warm in the space between Finn and Bellamy, both of their arms pressed against her own - shoulder to shoulder. With her as an extra body, Clarke knew she was making the fit in the apartment’s limited space tighter than usual, despite Octavia’s protest that her boyfriend, Lincoln, could not make his usual appearance. Notwithstanding her allegation Clarke could definitely feel Finn’s hair tickle the top of her ear and Bellamy’s breath when he turned his head towards her to ask if she felt overwhelmed.

The games were confusing to Clarke, but enjoyable. Everyone was full of smiles and laughs each round. There were whines during the unfortunate happenings and chances in the group, but the lips that the whines left were always upturned. Clarke’s cheeks a jaw hurt hurt from smiling so much; she welcomed the soreness. However, it was not in punishment, but serving herself the proof that...well, she was getting better. It was getting better -  _ everything was getting to become okay. Almost getting there. _

The meat Bellamy had prepared smelled rich and flavorful. Clarke couldn’t help herself - she always found herself looking at it in between her turns. For the first time in the years that were countless, Clarke’s mouth had watered at the sight. 

Finn’s weight leaned into her, causing Clarke to unintentionally back in Bellamy - just a bit, only enough to maybe escape some of the closeness Finn dispersed between them only to say, “You know...staring at the food may scare it away before you could eat it.”

And suddenly they were  _ really _ close. One of his tendrils brushed against her eyebrows as Clarke twisted to look at him fully. 

Finn looked into Clarke’s eyes as she gave him a knowing, sarcastic frown. His response was a smirk, boyish and man in one, and Clarke found herself with her teeth in her lip as she attempted not to smile. She gave him the tiniest shake of her head. 

“I can’t,” she responded, stealing a glance at Maya from across the table. Her routine with slowly getting back to eating correctly was still in pull. Clark was able to  _ feel  _ how much the meat would fill her small stomach. How little of it she would actually be able to keep down. It ached at the thought.

“Sure you can,” Finn protested, picking one of the smallest, thin parchment plates. He reached across the the game board - a name Clarke could not remember, honestly - and plopped a piece sized to about a little more than half her fist onto it. He held the plate in front of her with another smirk.

Clarke giggled, taking that platter and setting it down in front of her. “Is that your signature?”

Finn looked around playfully. The other side of his smirk lifted to form into an open smile. “What? Giving girls food they refuse to eat, even though it looks great?”

“No,” she replied, nudging his shoulder. “That...that  _ face _ -”

“What face?” he teased. Finn’s expression melted into solemn. 

“Your... _ smirking _ face.”

He matched her description. 

“Stop!”

“Hey, Flirt Birds! Stay in the game.” Raven’s voice called distantly. Clarke looked to where it came from...she was met with Raven’s smiles, but when Raven looked beside Clarke, the grin disappeared and her focused returned to the board. Clarke followed. 

It was seconds later when she felt hair in her ear. “Have some.”

 

+

  
  


Bellamy suggested they switch to Pictionary. Some disagreed to it (meaning Octavia), so they simply moved the board and pieces off the table still in place to play at a later time. Clarke had became excited once Bellamy explained the technicalities of it; she would be able to draw.

She found herself smiling when it turned to be her turn, even though her card said she would only need to draw a broomstick.

Murphy passed the notebook so that it was in front of her, and someone had placed a pen on top of that. Clarke took a deeper breath than normal, feeling a tightness in her cheeks from a slight smile, Taking her hand from the place it rested on her lap, Clarke raised it onto the table.

To be met with a broken, useless hand, wrapped in bandages.

She didn't exactly need the bandages anymore - Maya actually said giving the wound fresh air at this stage of healing would be good for it. The open lesions have since closed. But out of embarrassment of her foolishness, Clarke kept them on and hidden.

She felt her muscles freeze like a rope pulled taut. Several pieces of her hair fell in front of her face, light in weight - fair and feathery. They tickled her nose...something as little as a sharp exhale would let them flutter away. But there was no air that would be able to complete that task, nothing that would escape the prison her throat had become to it.

Her body rocked into Finn's arm as Bellamy shifted. His breath felt different, maybe from realization, Clarke at least inferred.

“You’re fine, Clarke,” He said. “Just use your other hand. No one here is even a decent wall painter.”

She felt his hand on the middle of her spine, slowly loosening her nerves as it circled up to her neck. She stole a glance at him, no finding the strength to hide the smile at his friends’ disagreements to his accusations.

A warm grip wrapped around her other wrist, Bellamy calmly, casually, placing one with the other.

Clarke took the stylus into her right hand. It shook a bit as she repositioned the stick in her grip, the feeling completely opposite and unfamiliar. She peeked at the card hidden under the table again, it reading  _ broomstick _ just has it had before.

“Ready?” she looked up at Emori whose fingers were ready to flip the time glass. Clarke gave a curt nod, returning her focus to the page. “...Go.”

The pen hit the paper. 

That was as far as it went. 

Clarke tried to move it -  she reassured herself that she could, that she did indeed have the capability, that she  _ wanted  _ to. But the only picture the pen made was a light, blue-inked scribble across barely a hair on the page, all but crafter by her shaking hand.

Her bicep ached when she went to lift it like she had multiple - too many - archery tournaments that day before. Clarke swallowed. 

In the far away distance, the time glass softly reflipped. It had been her thirty seconds. 

It was so  _ stupid _ . The whole thing. A stupid board game, stupid picture. Stupid, useless hand and stupid, stubborn courage that just decided to not work -  _ ever. _ It was just so, so  brainless; the fact that nothing in her body could cooperate enough for Clarke to draw a couple of lines with a hand she had an obnoxious amount of time to familiarize with. 

Clarke gulped. In front of her, her hand shuddered, and then her arm. It suddenly felt detached; her arms joint loose and unconnected from it’s socket, separate from the rest of Clarke’s being. In Clarkes eyes, the light blue scribbles… they started to move. Like the small earthworms she would find in her pants, the lines wiggled.dancing around the pen’s ballpoint, through the spaces between her fingers as they relaxed on the parchment. Touching her but not quite, driving her to confusion, to madness as they cowared away.  She wanted to look around -  _ see  _ others’ reactions to the spectacle, scream at them, asking why she wasn't hearing their surprise. But her eyes stayed on the page, captivated in a chilling way that... _ forced _ them to stay where they were. And her mouth could not scold them, either, considering the frozen gape it was trapped in. words were gone, anyway. Lost in the void of her uncontrol.

They gave in. the blue worms attached themselves to the webs of her fingers like leeches, absorbing into her skin like indigo dye.

The trumming started, then. Her fingers vibrated as the blue turned into a foreign liquid in her bloodstream, the blue energy starting to fill the veins. The vibrations through her fingers increased, the intensity so high it simply slowed to sounds of  _ thud, thud, thud,  _ cracking deep into the tissue of her bones.

The energy climbed through her arm. She thought she could see a faint blue glow, the creatures that had now turned to fluid and expanded. As it reached her shoulder, the light aced like an adhesive or maybe a chain, hooking her arm arm back into the rest of her body like a broken doll. And then she...she  _ felt _ it, the infected blood burning through her veins paths, leaving hard, indestructible strength behind the travels. Rather than a thin, fraying ribbon, her veins were pictured as flexible rods painted with magic. Light, dangerous magic, no doubt a threat as it finished through her toes, leaving her body thud, thud, thudding into smaller beats, minimizing into smaller,  _ tinier  _ vibrations, and she was glowing, shaking, out of  _ control -  _

Her gulp pushed down on the final button, and her mind shredded. 

There was a ringing, sharp and pitched, as game pieces echoed against the wall, the ceiling, the floor around Clarke.  _ The beacon _ .

Blindly, Clarke found herself up and then stumbling, on her knees after falling over Bellamy. And then she was in his bathing chambers and surrounded by darkness. She didn't remember closing the door behind her but its slam echoed nonetheless as Clarke folded into the empty bath. Cold swept her friction-heated back, reminding her of the feeling that filled every last one of her nerves.

_ Uncontrol, uncontrol, uncontrol. _

 

_ + _

 

She jumped as a knock sounded the door; it was tentative and soft. But Clarke was out of her skin nonetheless. Her cheeks stung with the paths the salted tears burned into them, and her body was still occasionally jolting in the aftershock of her outburst.

“Clarke. Are you conscious?” the answer was bare, her eyes weighing down like her lids were magnets. She wanted to know why Bellamy was asking that question, though, but the only sound her throat could find was a sob. She dug her eyes into her knees as the light turned on around her.

Not far behind where Bellamy was coming in, someone cursed. Profanity was still the same, it seemed. “What happened to your door, Blake?”

“Back away for a second, Jasper.” his comment warned Clarke how close he was. She tightened her muscles, attempting to keep in...anything, something, just - to protect Bellamy from the mess she was. “Clarke.”

Despite her stoic frame, her nerves fluttered at his fingers at her shoulder blade. She lifted her head just a small bit, only to peak at his reaching arms. Clarkes eyes were met with the artificial light, white and blinding,and they squeezed shut rather quickly. 

“You feeling alright?”

Clarke wasn't afraid to shake her head firmly. She hadn't been alright - not fully - in a long, long time.

“Everyone’s fine. I’m asking if you are.”

“Hey, Bellamy!” a voice said from the other side of the wall. “Where’s your ice? We got a game piece to the eye.”

Desperately - Clarke looked up at the question Bellamy was seeming to ignore. Instead, he looked at her wild, red eyes with his soft ones - so incredibly much  _ carefulness _ and... _ nurturing. _

He shifted closer to her as her lip trembled. She  _ hurt _ someone. His friend, someone who trusted him, she inflicted some sort of pain to them. But he palmed her hair off her messy face, petting her scalp. He was... _ caring.  _ So,  _ so caring. _

She didn't understand it.

and - pitifully - she cried even more than her sobs.

Out of frustration, out of guilt. 

Sorrow.

For the pathetic trust she had already broken - that she questioned why she possessed it in the first place. 

The harm she somehow alway put on others.

But - most importantly…

She felt sorry for herself. Her own soul.

And that was a reason for her guilt...the guilt of her selfishness, only finding pity for herself, but really - it was true. 

All of her life, Clarke had been limited. To being outside, to the expectations of a princess; of a  _ woman. _ That she was sobbing in a different time from where she had been born, being comforted by the idiot who decided to save her monster of a being.

Clarke was starved.

From food, yes. She hadn’t been able to eat correctly for her own mother’s lack of common sense. But  _ life  _ and...and  _ affection. _

Affection. Any physical touch, really. Her powers - both socially and physically - restricted her from it; it scared people away. Her father was there, but he was the ruler of a kingdom. He could only be there sometimes, and others...she didn't want him harmed. 

Clarke remembered the first time she was hugged. Her mother didn’t allow her father to after Clarkes eighth birthday, and the chances of her touching Clarke at all was not even in a question. Another kingdom's royal court came to the Griffin family palace, and her mother was not aware They had a daughter, thirteen, a year younger than Clarke at the time. She came up to Clarke as soon as the carriage stopped and hugged her,exclaiming it excitement that they were going to be the bestest of friends. The promise formed a lump in Clarkes throat and her tears wet the poor girl’s shoulder. Her mother kept Clarke in her chambers for the rest of the two week’s visit, and Clarke never saw the girl again.

She just wished to know her name.

When Clarke cried in the solitude of her bed curtains that night, it wasn’t because she didn't know the princess’s name, nor that it seemed that they would never be the bestest of friends and roam the gardens in the sun, but because of the embrace. She wanted  _ more.  _ not just the quick greeting. But she wanted to feel her heart pressed against another’s, hands bracing around each other, chin or cheek resting on her shoulder. Warmth. That was all she wanted.

It never came around, though.

The circle repeated. After that, Clarke noticed things more. When someone might want a hug, or even had a thought of going into one. She took advantage of all of them, and found herself shedding tears each time. Her birthdays were a mess because others influenced the affection -  _ affection _ \- and it was just...too much to bear.

Her fingers tingled.

Clarke shot back, pressing against the wall of tile behind her - away from Bellamy.

_ Crack. _

No. No, no,  _ no no no no no no no - _

The room was silent. Neither of them were breathing.

maybe, for Clarke, it was a good thing. 

Bellamy’s eyes were wide, running above the crown of Clarke’s head when she looked at him, horrified. He looked horrified, too.

The room was no longer silent. It was filled so thick that Clarke understood why neither of them breathed. With what, Clarke didn’t know. But she felt the scary and  _ horror _ and...curiosity.

“Bellamy…” her whole face was wet. His eyes flicked her. “Leave...please.”

He shook his head tentatively. Clarke looked away, exasperated. 

“Please,” she asked again, her voice cracking. “I...don't know how to stop this.” Clarke looked at him. “I can hurt you.”

“I’m not leaving, Clarke.” he shook his head. “You can’t stop me from staying here until you're good.”

Her hands shook. In a whisper, Clarke said, “I don't know if I can promise not to stop you.”

In a small wisp of air, her hand flicked, Bellamy stumbled away from her. He looked to the place where he just was, stunned. “What the  _ seven hells,  _ Clarke!”

Clarke’s hand came to her mouth - and then she pulled it away. Turning her palm over, Clarke saw how the creases shimmered like poison.

Her head hurt and her neck felt weak. She pulled her sleeves down her sweaty arms, over the heels, clasping the hems in the folds of her fingers. The friction agitated her left hand, but her nerves were tired, too spent, numb. 

“You need to tell me what the  _ hell  _ this is, Clarke.” Bellamy was suddenly standing up, towering over her, curls sloppy over his forehead and in odd angles over the top of his head. She - he looked...irritated. his voice was hard, scratchy, but softened with his next words,  “no more secrets. Even the bad stuff.”

“You don’t even know, Bellamy.”

“That’s the  _ point,  _ Clarke!” he rubbed a hand over his face, closing his eyes at the ceiling. “I don’t know anything. In order to keep you here, need  _ something. _ I suggest the  _ destructive powers _ that happen at the  _ worst damn times.” _

Clarke had close her eyes somewhere between his words. When she opened them, he was in front of her, kneeling.

“Tell me what is going on,” Bellamy said lowly.

Clarke swallowed her breath, biting her bottom lip. She felt the continuing vibration in her core - and  _ needed to stop it _ .

“My mother said I was cursed,” Clarke started with. She didn't hear anything but the distant conversations of his friends in the next room. How she was going to face them again, Clarke had no idea. “All the woman in our family got some...gift. It’s how we gained royalty. My ancestors got visions, and healing abilities, and all wonderful things that made the kingdom happy.” she paused, attempting to clear her dry throat by swallowing. It didn't relatively work. “And then I was born.

“Mine didn't show up for hours after I was born, unlike others who were known within minutes. No, my gift was found when I held my mother’s finger for the first time,” Clarke shook her head, “and crushed it.”

Bellamy raked a hand through his hair. 

“The palace speculated it was because my parents’ marriage was the most toxic thing the kingdom had ever seen. They'd whisper around me whenever I had another incident.” She adjusted to focus directly on Bellamy. “Nobody ever helped me, though. Not when I was three and ripped an arm off my favorite doll. Nor when my mother made me  _ so mad _ \- “ Clarke closed her eyes, regaining her breath. She couldn't get mad, not now. Not after everything she done already. “So mad that I shattered a sacred vase my father gifted to me in the middle of court. That’s when she locks her daughter up for a sentence of four thousand years.

“I don't exactly know what it is,” She clarified. “The priests all said it was a demon or something.“ she almost laughed, shaking her head. “But I don't believe in that stuff. Never did, honestly.

“But this...thing, it's some sort of strength. I've had enough time in complete solitude to speculate about it. I - I think its strength, but not exactly  _ muscle _ strength. More like that of the mind. And it's so strong that my being can manipulate the air around me with nothing but a twitch of my finger, or a lock of hair falling.”

“Did you ever think to learn how to control it in imprisonment?”

Clarke laughed. “My mother isn’t that stupid. You recall that shimmer you saw over my door? That was something of a...wall, I guess. It stopped me from using my powers, or dying, to say the least. I could hang right over edge, but never fall off.”

“For seven thousand years,” Bellamy clarified in a gruff, low voice.

“For seven thousand years,” Clarke repeated.

The room was silent. The apartment was silent. Clarke had to divert her eyes from his to avoid any further awkwardness. 

“Are you tired?” he asked, only after a moment. Clarke awarded him with a slight shrug. She noticed him twist to look back at the door behind him for a second. He unwinded back to her. “Everyone's probably going home, so you can go to bed. And before,” he interrupted Clarke opening her mouth, about to give herself an insulting comment. “You blame it on yourself, curfew is ending in a half hour anyway. They wouldn't be able to stay much longer.”

He helped her up, stepping behind her almost immediately. If she glanced behind herself to see what she had done Clarke would only see his collar bone under his comfortable brown shirt.

Clarke found herself comfortable in her - Bellamy _ 's - _ bed only a few minutes later. The other side lay cold, for Octavia was still cleaning up after their guests. Clarke busied herself by reimagining the night before she screwed it up like she did everything; the genuine joy, and bliss coating the air filling all of their lungs. Clarke felt like it was easier to breathe, somehow, with everyone there, even if it was hot with the laughs and summer air outside. 

It was Raven’s witt and jasper’s sarcasm; Murphy and Emori seemingly inseparable bond between each other. And it was fFnn, the heat of his arm expansing over her body throughout the hours of smiles and...and  _ happiness. _

She barely registered Bellamy sitting at her knees. 

“Figured you would be thirsty.” he held water in a blue cup. She sat up and took a long sip. There was a beat before he sighed and look at her. Clarke couldn't see him, not fully, in the darkness. She could see to void of his black waves and silhouette of a partial of his face. All of Bellamy’s freckles were blurred in the lack of light, all but the few closest to the open door behind him. His eyes looked black and almost boyish. “You okay?” he rasped.

Clarke just simply nodded. She twisted to the pillows behind her and adjusted them so she could lean back. His eyes were kept low as she did so. 

“Thank you for helping me. I think that's what I really needed,”  Clarke whispered.his head peeked at her voice. 

“Me forcing you to give me information helped you?” she felt the guilt in the space between them. Clarke didn't understand.he sounded so... _ sure _ when he told to tell him what had been happening, and although she was a little stunned at the moment, it didn't make her upset or angry. It was what he least deserved. 

“I should’ve told you sooner. With everything you have done for me, it should've been the first thing I told you.” she didn't feel like gratitude she had for his in what she said, but she didn't know what else to say. Or do. “Besides, it helped me face the truth. Let it out after all those years of it being trapped inside.”

“Still wasn’t the best way I could've gone about it.”

“It was in the moment. Don't regret anything, Bellamy. It gave me the push I needed.  _ You _ did.”

He looked at her. She lifted her eyes to look at him. And then Clarke scooched over, just a hair,and lifted her elbow the slightest bit to indicate what she was offering. She noticed his one-sided smile as he crawled over, settling next to her. Their arms touched, like the way they did when they were with his friends. Almost in sync, they rested their heads back to look a the blank ceiling. Clinks of glass ran in the distance of the living quarters. 

“I can’t stop thinking,” Bellamy said. He swallowed. “I can’t stop thinking what this is like for you. Not even a new century. Centuries of centuries, you had came from. There been new eras.destruction. Rebuilding. You missed it all. You…” he adjusted himself, their skin disconnecting and reconnecting, arms rubbing against each other at the slightest friction. “You must feel so lost.”

She thought for a moment.

“Not really,” Clarke admitted. “It wasn't like I thought the world would stop building for me.it's just a matter of getting used to all of it. Including being around people again.”

“That must’ve sucked.” 

“what? being detached for that long?” she heard Bellamy’s hair nod against the pillow their heads were sharing. “It wasn’t the worst of it. Because of my for-so called ‘ _ curse’, _ I didn't have many people I interacted with anyway. It wasn't a big change.” she swiped her tongue across her teeth. “I had people I missed, though. People I wished I could rant to. My father.”

“Tell me about him,”  Bellamy told her, so solemnly Clarke let out a small laugh. 

“Alright.” she gathered her thoughts for a second before taking a breath. “He was one of the only people who saw me as a scared little girl. Not a dangerous witch or a princess, or even his daughter. I think that's why he was my only friend, for the most part.

“There's too much to say about him. But he cared for me like a father should.when my power made me weak he would entertain me beside my bed. Braid my hair, helped me learn to draw. I spent too much time with him being the daughter of the king, but he found it anyway. A few times a year he'd be able to sneak me outside. And for days after those hours, I felt like a normal being; controlled.”

“He sounds cool,” Bellamy commented, and Clarke laughed. When she glanced at him, his lips were upturned, too.

“Yes. very cool.”  her fingers played with the blankets she was under. “When my mother locked me up, she gave me one thing I could take. The rest of my belongings would be lost in the old world when I returned to it.”

“Sounds like a hard decision.”

“Not really, I remember. Her guards gave me until  they counted to one hundred and twenty digits to choose. When I was thrown into the room filled with my belongings - all of them, in one room - I realized how little I really had. Sure, there was priceless jewelry and beautiful dresses, but as to my  _ belongings... _ it was only filled with a half-full trunk of books and some mixed paints. I spent twenty whole seconds standing there in disbelief. That fact that my family owned  _ so much _ \- they pretty much owned thousands of lives. And yet nothing was really mine. There was only about half the time left, and I was just about to grab this bracelet and leave. I just wanted to get out of there. But then - almost as if it was glowing - my eyes caught on this jar. It was about the size of my forearm, maybe bigger or smaller. But it held shards - they were greenish blue, and I also thought I was dreaming, because I knew what it was, but did not want to face it. I didn't want to face the taunting my mother was putting in front of me.”

“What do you mean?”

“The shards were from my adolescence vase. When a Griffin princess grows into maturity, she is gifted a vase from her father. Together, they would plant a tree seed of her choice. Depending on how it would grow from there on would tell how she would rule, how her life would be. There was a whole garden dedicated to my ancestors’ trees before me. It was eerie, in a way, but it had this timeless effect on it, and I found myself there whenever I went outside. The most beautiful little animals would find life there as well.”

“You told me before that you shattered a sacred vase...as that - “

“Yes, it was that vase. It gives me a headache just thinking about that day. But when  I was dragged out of there, I just remember knowing that was the last time. My last court, last time getting my hair weaved with the nimble fingers of my lady, the last time seeing my father, who was being pulled the other way. It was. But then here I was, staring at the vase again, this time in countless pieces. I picked it out of spite.

“When I came to face with my mother, holding the jar with both hands and my chin high, she simply looked into my eyes and said, ‘you can’t bring that. That jar is not yours.’”

“What a  _ bitch _ .” Clarke huffed a laugh, clearing her throat. Bellamy reached over her to get the cup, handing her the water from the bedside table. She accepted it and took a sip.

“I was so out of it at that point I wasn't even afraid of her. I dropped the jar from my hands. It shattered at our feet, and I kept eye contact with her for an extra second just to see her reaction. And then I knelt on the floor and took a single shard, and then used a piece of the jar to carve a hole in it. I ripping a length of my dress hem and put it through the space and made it into a necklace. I saw no reaction when I stood back up to her. But I had my possession I could bring with me. I looked over her shoulder at the path ahead of me and simply brushed her shoulder when I passed.”

“Was that the last you saw of her?”

“Unfortunately, no. She made sure to be the one that locked me up.”

“I'm surprised she wasn't worried about you taking a shard in with you, though. If you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I was too. But I soon figured out everything in there could not be harmed until the wall was demolished. Including me.”

In next room, the clangs had grown quiet. They only laid in the sounds of their breaths and thoughts. Clarke’s tongue tingled from how much she had talked, but the sensation wasn’t dangerous. 

“You’re really strong, you know,” Bellamy said after a little while. It had been so long without either of them talking that Clarke had thought he fell asleep.

“I don’t need pity, Bellamy.” She almost flinched when he turned to her. 

“It’s not pity. It's a compliment. All of this, and you are still standing.”

“Actually, were laying down right now.”

“Clarke.” 

Clarke turned to him this time, and was taken aback by how close they actually were. If she were to move in only an inch or two, their noses would touch. 

“If my prison didn't have that protection spell, I would have killed myself.” it was too dark to see a shift in his eyes.

“You and I both know that's not true.” 

“Really?  I'm sorry, but I seem to be missing something.”

“Yeah, you are. You are still right in front of me.”

“That doesn't say anything.”

“You had seven thousand years in that ditch, Clarke.” his focus was hard; she almost felt pressure from it. “If you wanted to die, you would have figured out how. Not to mention its been weeks here, and you still have yet to pick up a knife.”

“You don't know that,” Clarke lied. “And of course I didn’t. I'm out.”

“I wouldn't say so. Even if you're out of that prison, you're still in another one.”

Clarke shook her head against the pillow. Hair fell in front of her. “Bell -”

“I know you think of it like that. You told us the first day.”

She searched her mind for excuses. She  _ did _ call his home a prison, no matter how much she wanted to take it back. “I didn’t mean it. You know that.”

“I know that you did. And I understand. But I didn't, at that time, and that's why I was so mad.”

“You had a right to be mad.”

“Not exactly. It was my decision to get you, so it was my responsibility to take fault in it. You had reason to be upset. We stabbed you, for hell's sake.”

“I suspect that lab would have done a lot more.”

“Doesn’t make it better.” he brushed her hair out of her face. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re being stupid.”

He looked at her for a while. She looked at him, too.

“I would tell you my sob story, but you look tired.”

“Tomorrow night?” He nodded, smiling a bit. 

“Tomorrow.”

Clarke flipped over to rest on her right side then, facing away from him. She couldn't think of sleep with eyes like his looking at her. 

She waited two minutes. Bellamy had not moved.

“Bell?”

A beat. “Yeah?”

She hesitated, thinking her mind over once more. “I like Finn. Do you think I can see him again?”

The pause was longer that time. 

“Yeah,” he said, filling the silence. “Sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alot happened, huh? 
> 
> the plot is about to start thickening...if you don't recall, i took a small break to sort everything out for the next few chapters and fell behind in having to change some stuff. nevertheless, hope you liked this:)
> 
> thank you all for comments and reviews! i love reading them!


	12. this mind of blind memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story is back - sorry for the hiatus. but I've planned the whole book, now, detail to detail, so it should be pretty free-flowing for now on. thanks for sticking around, and enjoy the chapter:)

CHAPTER XII

  
  
  


Clarke woke up in comfortable warmth the next morning. Bellamy wasn’t there next to her; the other side of the bed was still made, but a bit rumpled. The thin cloth of the curtain did not reflect the light coming in -  she squinted at the bright sun rays beaming through the threads. There was a faint clutter of noise in the next room. She looked through the ajar door to find the cascade of Octavia’s hair flowing around the kitchen.

Octavia smiled at her from what she was doing as she silently slipped into the room. 

“It’s about time you are up. Bellamy already left for his shift. I made muffins.” She lifted up a plate from the table, and Clarke’s senses kicked in as the scent traveled. The pastries smelled of berries and baked batter like they should. 

Clarke found herself on her feet quicker than she normally would in the morning. She slipped onto the stool at the center table as Octavia gave her a plate and bowl of butter. Clarke took a muffin from the assortment.

“Bell told me about the plan.”

Clarke glanced at her, recalling his conversation with her earlier about going back to the prison’s library. 

“You good with it?”

“I'm fine with it,” Clarke said quickly. “He’ll be there with me. And he will love all of them.”

“It seems pretty absurd, Clarke.” she paused sawing through her muffin. “You’re going back to where you were trapped for Hell’s known how long.”

“Seven thousand years.”

“Because that makes it better.”

Clarke continued cutting through the pastry. She was being overly careful, she understood that, but Clarke wanted to enjoy the new food she was able to have. And with her power so strong last night, she didn't know how it would act today. 

“It’s fine. I'm fine. He will be there and the door will be open. And we’re going to the part I miss.”

“Just want you to think a little more about it. You don’t need to go.”

“Well, of course,” Clarke responded. She started buttering individual pieces. “But I’ve noticed the books he reads and his color interest. He wants to know more, and I can give him that. I owe you both, anyway.”

“We did what was right. You are doing something that is  _ not  _ alright.” there was a small groan from Clarke’s plate. She looked down. The butterknife she held had her white-knuckled fingers around it as it bent at an odd angle.

She felt Octavia’s attention slip to the spectacle. Clarke’s magic bent the material in half. There was a sigh as Clarke breathed a quiet, “Sorry.”

But the sigh faded into a chuckle. On the other side of the island Octavia laughed as Clarke handed her the destroyed butter knife. Clarke didn't find her mishap relatively funny, but Octavia certainly did; so much to the fact that Clarke's own abdominals sore just watching Octavia’s laughs work her own.

“I forget how you can handle yourself,” Octavia admitted, returning upright. “Physically, I can see you'll do fine. It's the mentality.” Clarke looked at her harder than before.

“So if you feel one bit uncomfortable,” Octavia began, “you tell my idiot brother to forget this little mission.”

Thinking the prison over, Clarke wasn't exactly guaranteed if it was possible that she wouldn't be the only one with the mindset.

 

+

 

Bellamy came home with news that they would be able to act upon the plan in a matter of a few days. He just needed to fill in the holes of the guarantee that they could get to all Point-A and Point-B’s. Octavia still wasn't exactly at ease with the whole thing, even when Clarke affirmed both she and Bellamy she would be alright. Bellamy must have thought through more than his planning because he was much more concerned about how okay Clarke was with this whole thing than the other day when he first proposed his idea.

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you both; I’ll be fine,” she assured them under their worried brows, once again. 

“This doesn't look like you are completely fine,” Octavia replied, walking over to the kitchen’s island and holding up the butterknife Clarke had folded before. Clarke sighed as Bellamy brushed past her, grabbing it from his sister’s hands to inspect the ruined silver.

“What happened with this?” he held it up to the ceilings’ light like it would tell him the answer. 

Octavia didn't make a move to answer, so Clarke opened her mouth. “My powers acted up. I don't know why.”

He averted his eyes to her, brows tense with sudden apprehension. They flick a scan of her being. 

“I don't think its a good idea to go out if you aren't exactly in control,” he pressed. Clarke sighed, slumping in the stool she was still seated in. There was a soft  _ clang  _ as Bellamy set the fork down on the marble. 

“When can I see Finn again?” Clarke mentioned, wanting to change the subject. The question earned her a stifled sigh from Bellamy. Clarke concentrated on a specifically shimmering rock merged in the marble in front of her. 

“I talked to him earlier. He’s free on Thursday during recreation hours.” Bellamy's tone had changed, but Clarke chose to ignore it. She was annoyed as well. Though she didn’t understand his reason, Clarke surely understood her own annoyance with the constant, repetitive  _ Are you okay _ questions. Even if they were to take care of her. When she was small, it would be rare if someone asked Clarke about her state; a  _ How are you? _ greeting was even as unprobable to get. People were too scared to know the answer, or they just didn’t know the princess well enough to even care for her like another stranger you would pass in the halls. Meanwhile, she’d just be alone with her only friend being her power she couldn't control, cramped up in her room, just as she was in this flat...

“Maybe leaving is exactly what I need,” Clarke stated, looking up at him. His eyes narrowed the slightest bit. “Just think, Bellamy.” When she stood up, slim inches were left in between them. They were chest to chest. Clarke tilted her chin up to meet Bellamy’s eyes. “I’ve been cooped up here for so long, and after my powers being restricted for so long during my imprisonment...maybe I just need some release of it.” 

Bellamy’s eye twitched.

“I want to go out. Please.”

Octavia stopped moving on the other side of the counter. Clarke felt her gaze on the both of them. 

Bellamy’s mouth parted. “Okay,” he nodded. His eyes were full and glossy. With him and her standing so close, all he could see was Clarke.  “Okay.”

+

 

The book Clarke was reading was interesting, she swore to it, but she couldn't focus. The thought of seeing the outside,  _ finally _ , and maybe even the sun...it was exhilarating. She couldn't stop smiling. 

The rays warmed her spot through the curtains where she had decided to read. It reminded her of last night, when Finn was sitting so close to her, providing so much warmth that couldn't even be given by the sun, Clarke believed. She smiled at the memory of his hair brushing her ear, how his smirk seemed to be his natural countenance.

She couldn’t focus on the words, dammit. All her mind could adhere to was him. Seeing Finn again.

Clarke knew what courting was, certainly. She had never gotten to it as royalty, though; her arranged marriage she was born into was never mentioned again once her powers showed themselves. Sometimes maids would whisper around her, saying she and the boy would have worked together, if she was born with the same light magic as the rest of her female ancestors. She would have been married off one, Clarke presumed, even if she was long past a royal bride’s age range when both her parents would have passed and she needed to pass along her family’s genes. But she ran out of time. Her mother imprisoned her before she could walk the gardens with a gentleman other than secret outings with her father, or wear a braid of flowers as she walked down the aisle to her soon-to-be husband. She read stories. Clarke knew not every marriage was out of love, but she still wished for it. To have a purpose, no matter how small it could be.

The style has changed in this time, Clarke had already clarified that weeks ago. But it was hard not to imagine Finn in clothes from her own time. Hair kept back, tied in what she could imagine an indigo linen. His clothes with that of a suitor, even though his shirt was thin last night. 

What she would imagine a prince to be like.

When Clarke's mind unblurred and the words in her book in front of her returned, she noticed Octavia a few measures away from her. She was carrying a basket of folded cloth, colors faded from many washes, but still somehow vibrant. Laundry. 

“I’ve never seen something so pathetic,” Octavia laughed. “Or eyes so dazed. Who y’ dreaming about?”

Clarke shook her head, smiling with pink cheeks. She turned back to her book, pretending to read. 

“Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“Why are you asking questions like that when you are clearly thinking about a guy?” Octavia forgets the basket, dropping it in the middle of the floor and sitting next to Clarke. “Who?”

Clarke gave her a look. It was obvious, right? 

Octavia groaned obnoxiously in response, falling onto Clarke’s arm. Clarke had never experienced this before. This...genuine friendship. She kept to herself, holding her previous position as much as she could in attempt to keep control, partly, with the other half of her simply not knowing what to do. She was smiling, though. Clarke enjoyed this genuine friendship.

“Clarke’s in  _ love! _ ”

“Shush it, Octavia,” Clarke giggled. She was able to push her off, but Octavia still hovered.

“Can we talk about it?” 

“About  _ what?” _

“ _ Boys,  _ Clarke. Guys. I have an overprotective big brother, I never get to. Please?”

Clarke sighed, closing her book with a smile. She turned to Octavia. “I don’t know much about them.”

“Well, there's not a lot to  _ learn _ rather than they are all attractive assholes that like to take our hearts.”

“Good to know,” Clarke said politely. 

“It's what they  _ do  _ with our hearts after they’ve taken it.” Clarke smiled. She was kind of giddy to get back to her book, not exactly knowing what to say in this conversation. She felt Octavia’s focus increasingly on her as her eyes shifted down. “You don’t have anything?”

Clarke looked back to her. “The only boys I’ve known are fictional.” she held up her book for emphasis. 

“Probably want to keep it that way,” Octavia joked, breaking any sort of awkwardness Clarke’s confession would have caused. “Books have the best guys. And love stories. They’re not like that in real life.”

“How do you know?” Clarke had to admit, she was a bit disappointed. Although royalty didn’t have the best experience in love, she imagined somewhere there would be something like that of a fictional story. 

“It’s just common sense you learn. There's still love, of course, but it can’t ever be as epic as a fictional love story.”

Clarke focused on Octavia’s shift, seeing how her eyes were over her shoulder rather than her face like seconds before. “Have you ever been in love, Octavia?”

It was a long pause, but Clarke was patient. She could see Octavia working out her answer. 

“I think so. I think I just haven't admitted it to myself yet so it doesn’t hurt as much when Bellamy infinitely turns him down.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bellamy practically raised me. Our mom was always working, so he was stuck playing house. He’s formed into a father-like figure with a big brother already there. So when I started liking my boyfriend, Lincoln, he wasn’t too happy. Still isn't. Lincoln is part of a society that isn't exactly looked upon with respect, so I can understand why. But I don't understand why Bellamy has to go this far.”

Clarke gave her a moment of sympathy before asking, “Where is he, anyway?”

“Probably pretending to work on his book and the prison plan when he's really,” Octavia raised her voice, directing it to Bellamy’s bedroom, “eavesdropping on girl talk he has no reason to listen to!”

Clarke could hear a sigh followed by a chuckle. She and Octavia exchanged smiles.

 

\---

 

She had come to admit to herself that she was in no way controllable over her power. Just since the knife incident, Clarke had cracked the bathroom’s light beam, accidentally stripped Bellamy’s bed whilst trying to pull off the covers, and shattered a picture frame when her strength overplayed her gentle toss of a book onto the bed. How she was going to approach Octavia or Bellamy about any of it without having the reaction she knew it would bring, Clarke had no idea.

Her energy was off the lines. She had no idea how to get it back on - Seven Hells, she didn’t know how to even get close to it. Clarke wasn’t really able to understand what her power was before her imprisonment, and that was when she had people there who knew something about how it worked. Here, seven thousand years later, Clarke was stuck.

Clarke rolled onto her back, looking at the ceiling. She hoped that napping would kill some time so Bellamy let her stay with him on the other side of his bed as he worked. Octavia had since gone off to work.

But Clarke couldn't sleep. Her power energized her whole body. It left a strumming sensation that pounded in her ears, but Clarke was pretty sure it was all in her head since Bellamy had yet to notice it. Or he was too focused.

She glanced down at him sitting in the opposite corner of the comforter. He had spectacles on, slouched over an array of opened books. It seemed he didn't acknowledge her restless state. Clarke sat up and moved closer to him, sitting on her heels. 

“What is your book about, again?” she inquired. She knew the answer, so the question was less out of curiosity and more just wanting to talk to him. Her voice broke him from whatever daze of research he was in and he looked at her. 

“Oh, uh…” he looked around the piles like they held an answer he already knew. “Ancient Literature, mostly.”

Clarke thought for a moment, scanning the texts in front of him. She recognized some of the locations listed from when her father would tell her where his trade was traveling to. “It’s sort of odd,” she admitted softly, “That my favorite stories are considered that, now.”

Bellamy breathed a soft chuckle. “I never really thought about it from your perspective. You’re right, though.”

“It was Roman stories for me. Shakespeare. Deadly fairytales where princes saved enchanted princesses from towers.” 

Bellamy looked at her for a long time. It was a delicate eye he watched her with as she squirmed a bit. She didn’t know where to look.   _ This  _ is what she was trying to tell Octavia… she had no idea how to act around gentlemen - 

But there was nothing to be nervous about with Bellamy. She was a cursed princess trapped in a mountain and he was a common man who had a kind heart. He saved her out of orders and morality. This was no fairytale.

So she found her eyes with his a gave him a slight smile. She made sure to have a look as soft as his to match. Like a painting, it wouldn’t blend well if it was anything else. They needed to be equal. 

“Too bad you need to be kept secret. Interviewing you would be the all-time best source.” 

She couldn't help it - it was funny, so Clarke laughed. Even if there was a painful truth behind it. 

“I like when you laugh,” Bellamy said, smirked loosely. “You looked so happy last night. I hadn’t really seen that from you yet.”

“I like your friends. And I've been happy.,” Clarke assure. 

“Not really. Not because of me, at least.” she could hear the guilt.

“You gave me the books.”

“It wasn’t like last night.”

Clarke took a deep breath. “I never really had friends. Between the magic and the royalty, I wasn’t exactly allowed. Last night was a first for me.”

“Do you miss anyone from then?”

“Not exactly,” Clarke said quickly. “As I said, I didn’t have friends, unless you count the maids who were a little less scared of me than others. Sometimes I wish my dog came with me, but he died before I was imprisoned anyway. The one person I do miss is my father.”

“You told me about him before. I don’t blame you. But there really isn’t anyone else?”

Clarke shook her head. “I never knew anyone else.”

“Your mom.” Clarke laughed a little. 

“She was barely a mother, more of a warden.”

“Sorry, I know. That was a stupid question.”

“No, not really,” she shrugged. “What person wouldn’t miss their mom?” Bellamy’s eyes dropped. Clarke’s followed. “Octavia told me you practically raised her because your mom was always busy. Where is she now?”

“There was an incident,” Bellamy told Clarke after running his fingers through his curls. “In the rationing centers about two decades ago, there was an issue. Our society is completely controlled by that center down to our oxygen distribution. It messed up. All rationing was limited for almost a decade. In that time, you were only allowed to have one child unless you already had more. My mother just became pregnant with Octavia and refused to get an abortion like they told everyone who didn’t meet the standards to do. She gave birth to her and raised her in secret. Until Octavia was sixteen.”

“What happened? Did they…”

“She's alive. Since the problem has been fixed, the death penalty wasn’t relevant because there was no oxygen they had to save. But she's been in jail for three years, and probably will be for the rest of her life.”

“Octavia…”

“She was just like you now. We had the same rules for her; that’s why we are so strict with you. We’ve been through it before.”

There was a beat where it all settled. Now that her mind was at a whole different place, the buzzing of Clarke’s nerves dwelled. 

“Three years wasn’t that long ago,” Clarke mentioned simply. Bellamy smirked.

“Three years probably feels like two hours for you.” Clarke shook her head.

“No. Not exactly. In the prison, against the time I had been there, it may not seem long. But as long as three years feel for you are as long as they are for me. My mother made me feel all of it.”

“I assumed being there for so long sucked horse shit - anyone would, really - but I don't think I can ever begin to imagine what it really felt like.” What followed was still air. She knew he was full of guilt over something that was completely out of his control - but living with him, Clarke learned that was just Bellamy.

“We can pretend,” Clarke said, turning to him.

Sensibly, Bellamy came to be at a loss. “What?”

Clarke ignored him, standing up and walking to his closet. She grabbed a dark cotton shirt and started back toward the bed where Bellamy watched. She started to fold it into a long strip. 

“Put this over your eyes.” Clarke handed him the blind, which he accepted with a relaxed hand. She took the books off the bed and laid them in their same places on the floor. When she returned to Bellamy, his eyes were covered. “Now lay back.” As Bellamy laid back, she removed the pillows, putting them on the carpet along with the books. 

“Clarke, what -”

“Shh. Can you see anything?”

“No.” He readjusted the cloth anyway.

“Okay. Now think back to when you found me.”  she sat quietly on the edge of the bed. “What everything looked like.” Surprisingly, Bellamy stayed quiet. She watched him melt into the mattress as he relaxed all of his muscles. “But pristine, and new. Imagine how it looked when you first walked in to follow your orders. Are you?”

He hummed a clarification.

“Alright. Now imagine being scared of yourself, of this curse running physically through your veins. Knowing that others are just as terrified. But more so, just being told by your mother that you were the worst thing she could have ever had as a daughter, and that you now needed to pay up for it. Being thrown into the foyer with the words of how much you deserved what you were getting ringing in my ears.” She paused - “Sorry.  _ Your  _ ears. Ringing in your ears. Looking up to the place you would be living in for four thousand years, no matter what you did. Trying to come up with a schedule to stay sane. One day you find a small sewing kit, and in a few hundred years you seek it out again to poke yourself with a needle because there's nothing better to do, and it gives a new feeling other than the regular. You constantly start to feel as if you are a glass and your sentence of imprisonment is a deafening ringing, threatening to shatter all you are but not ever quite loud enough to do so. Seeing if you can push yourself over the edge yourself, try not to eat for a month or breath for an hour. But all it brings is pain; never death. A sickening pain that only forces you to do it again, even if nothing in you wants to. The one corner of you that is the curse your mother suspends you over that cliff ledge, and pulls you farther back from it everytime you may just think, ‘ _ oh, finally, here we go _ ’.” Clarke laughed a bit, at her arrogance at the time. She acknowledged Bellamy, returning her eyes to him after they drifted down. His face was set with tension. Knowing a long pause would confuse him, Clarke continued.

“Celebrating your birthday would be a bit much every time it came around, so instead, you look at your tallies and see one thousand years has officially passed, and celebrate that with making yourself a friend. A pillow that had a mermaid stitched into the front of it. That's when the book talks start. Soon if you aren’t reading you are painting, and once you run out of books and places to paint you paint in the books. Tallies become another habit; walk in a room, tally, sit on a certain chair, tally. Boredom is completely overcoming.” Clarke took a moment. She closed her eyes and breathed, feeling the prison’s air sifting through her nostrils, cascading into her lungs, and emptying it all out with one exhale. When she opened her eyes, they showed her Bellamy’s room, but her mind isn't quite there anymore. It was being overruled by the rooms in which she was locked in. “but you congratulate yourself. Because you know if there wasn’t a balustrade to your insanity or mortality, the hands and body you painted with might as well be a corpse of thousands of years. Because that's what happens when you look at the same objects and hear the same things every hour forever as long. You can’t help but wonder.” she focused on Bellamy, a single tear tickling her cheek as it fell. “And then one day, you hear something new. 

“Your brain does nothing but listen at first. Your body is frozen to reacting to it because it's  _ a new sound  _ and all you want to do is absorb it. And then it further processes that it's from the front door, and that someone is trying to get in, and your mom is  _ finally _ showing you mercy after thousands of extra years.” her hand, now almost fully healed and useable, tingled. “But you get there, and they won't let you out. And to make matters worse, the medical kit you have never used is destroyed anyway -”

Clarke jumped as Bellamy sat up abruptly, ripping off his blindfold. It flung somewhere to the other side of the room. Clarke’s eyes followed it briefly. Returning to Bellamy, he was sitting on the edge of the bed. His elbows rested on his knees with his head in his hands as he rubbed the muscles in his eyes. The hair on the back of his head bounced as he shook his head.

“How, Clarke?” He asked her from between his fingers. “ _ How? _ ”

She looked at him for a second over her shoulder. “How what?” she rolled over her tailbone to be on the same side of the bed as him.

“How did you do it?” Clarke leaned on her hands that were planted on her knees as she listened to his question.

“Well, I barely did. The only thing that kept me sane was the curse not allowing me to lose it. You know how I was when I first came here.” he looked at her, then. And for a second, Clarke doubted she looked any different then she did then. She avoided his eyes. 

“I wouldn’t be able to believe it was you.” Clarke gave him a look. “No, Clarke, honestly; even in this small amount of time - especially from what you’ve been used to - there's been a change. More than one.” she was looking at her knees, so Bellamy moved in front of her, making her look at him. “It’s impressive Clarke. You’ve been strong.” he placed his hands over her’s.

She didn’t want to do it, she knew that - but Clarke smiled through a blush on her cheeks. Slipping her hands out from under his, Clarke placed them on his shoulders. “Thank you,” she said, and she meant it. For taking care of her all this time, despite all the shit she was pulling. Any other person and she would have to tell them that - may even have to apologize for it all first. But with the Blakes - with Bellamy...she knew he heard every word underneath those two simple ones.

He nodded, taking his hands from her knees and sliding them to the back of her ribcage, bringing her down with him on the floor. She drifted her hands’ place on his shoulders to wrap around his neck as he did the same on her back, and then they were hugging, chest to chest, heart to heart, beating against each other, beating together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that 5x05 mention...can you spot it?
> 
> please leave suggestions and thoughts/comments!
> 
> follow me on tumblr: @thesaviorjones


	13. no control or some control

 

_ CHAPTER XIII _

  
  
  
  


In the following days, Clarke didn’t have much luck with finding control. Her embrace with Bellamy a few afternoons before had not been nearly as long as she needed it to be...but it calmed her nonetheless. She felt more at ease afterward, and she had felt more comfortable around Bellamy since the fact. It wasn’t in the same way as she had started to be connected with Octavia, but it was nothing less in the matter, either. He and she had formed a different kind of connection; they didn’t talk about crushes on gentlemen and braid hair. Instead, they shared each other's past traumas.

Fun.

Clarke was grateful for it, though. She was. Talking to someone was so much better than not at all. She never thought of simply sharing the feeling she experienced, even if it was in the most dilated way, with another. But honestly, how  _ could _ she do it justice? What she had explained to Bellamy was as best as she could do without losing control. Unless it wasn’t - but it was as far as Clarke was willing to risk going.

Boredom also brought another thing to mind; Clarke wanted to build her strength up.  She certainly lost everything her past self had during her imprisonment. The natural curve she was born with was there, even if only slightly,  but her muscles have faded over her time. She didn’t expect anything less, though.

There was never exactly a time when she was alone in the apartment, but for the most part both Bellamy and Octavia knew to knock when his - or her, Clarke didn't exactly know whos room to label it as - door was closed. It wasn’t that she was hiding or anything, it was just...general politeness. 

Clarke found herself on the edge of the bed with books layered on one another in front of her. She held them out, a few at a time, even though her arms tired and shook not long into it. It wasn’t until long, either, that the back of her neck became cool with her own sweat. She recalled that the burning in her arms meant what she was doing was working, and although she may be a bit sore later,  that's what she wanted.

She also needed to buff up. In the days of her royalty, if she was able to call it that, there were several meal courses drawn throughout the day. Food was of no shortage in the castle her family dwelled in. It was more often than not that she would find herself and her meal in her chambers, though, brought to her by servants.

Looking back at it, she didn’t understand why she let herself be a prisoner - it wasn’t like she was being  _ threatened _ to be isolated. At least not by her mother or anyone physical. What it  _ was  _ was nothing other than her own fear. Not of her powers, necessarily - yet that was a whole other part of it - her fear was none other than the ignorance of her family. 

Her mother of course resented her, and her father was in likes of avoiding his wife’s wrath when he would show  _ un- _ resentment to the volcanic creature they created. Clarke’s mom knew that he did in fact love their daughter...and discounted it, since she actively stayed away from seeing it first hand. He knew showing any devotion to Clarke infront of her would jeopardize what she allowed him to do behind her. 

Not to mention the  _ amount  _ of food...gods, how many mouths it would be able to feed besides the three of them. Clarke was  _ never  _ allowed to eat with those of company when they stayed at the palace, so she could only hope more food was taken during those meals, and any remaining would be passed on to the servants. She knew that was not the case, though, and felt discomfort in sitting in front of what nutrition would never be touched by anything but the air, dirt roads, and unappreciative rats scurrying about them. 

Nevertheless, Clarke regretted not eating with others as much as she did, even if most of the decisions as to whether she did or didn't was out of her control. Because in her imprisonment, she found she only reminisced on her father, and maybe the world she saw none of...but not much of people besides him. Nothing more beyond how they were all dead by the time she got around to thinking about them.

Slowly though, her stomach was getting strong enough hold down meals bigger than her meak rations. It was taking a while of course, but everyone was patient. Everyone except Clarke.

She wanted nothing more than to stuff a whole plate into her mouth - china and all - if it meant she would look  _ anything _ different than she did then. 

In the prison, mirrors were portals that she started to avoid centuries in. The myths of immortals - those who lived on in their own frozen time - were that of mythical creatures, or dangerous, depending on what species the story was aiming towards. Hence the matter, it seemed to Clarke’s childhood self that the world’s wise always aimed for youth. Little Clarke, barely a teenager, did not understand why anyone would want to be stuck in the age caste she was in for all of their days, where they would be shut down for thinking their own ideas or belittled because of their jovial ignorance. 

Thousands of years later, when she had lived through what others had only dreamed, Clarke had only been surprised by one thing; it wasn’t boredom, or loneliness, no - she had expected those. She had not expected how  _ jaded _ she became of seeing herself. It was the same face for years upon more, with the same blond hair that had an unsettling, artificial cleanliness to it  _ all of the time _ . Her reflection, as she passed it every time she would walk around her cell, became a blur, slowly fraying around the edge with each glance until there was nothing but a whole new character on the other side. 

The gaunt cheekbones that had formed, the shadows of nothing but unexplained tiredness slowly drowning her eye sockets. That girl was no longer the one that stepped into the door of that place. But she never failed to do anything but taunt Clarke, even if she was trapped in that mirror. Because when Clarke wasn’t in the mirror, that girl wasn't, either - and that meant she was somewhere else in that unknown world that no one would ever visit. Out of all things Clarke had came to hate about that place, somehow her face had became her top among all.

Besides that one incident that she slipped into in Bellamy’s bathing chamber’s mirror, Clarke had started to actively avoid the ones around the apartment in the fear of that girl overtaking this strange, new life she was slowly building with this small circle of people. 

Soon enough Clarke would be strong enough to tell her to leave. But in order to do that, she needed to stop emboding as a vessel for the taunt, and to do that, she couldn't look how the girl needed to look. So until she could gain weight and muscle, Clarke was to not look in the mirror. 

It wasn't that hard - the Blake’s seemed to not be obsessed with looking at themselves the way one of a royal family may want to, so mirrors were only in places they should be. But reflections were a whole different story. Even if it would just be a blur of her features, the silver spoons and steel sink...in order to keep with her goal, Clarke always found her eyes shut.

Her vision’s focus escaped her as the weight of the books infront of her became an oblivion. Clarke’s arms shook with the simple weight that increased with every moment she held it. But she kept at it, welcoming the burn as she’d done previously.

With a knock on the door, the books slipped through her hands and tumbled onto the floor.

“Yes?” she replied, as collectively as able. “You can come in.”

The door handle turned and Bellamy’s head popped through. He took in the scattered books before looking at her. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, you just startled me is all.” She ended her response with an upturn on the corner of her lip.

Bellamy nodded. “I just got word from Finn. He’s coming by later today.”

The thought of him made Clarke smile a little bit more. “That sounds great. Thank you for inviting him.”

“You asked me to. Can’t disregard a princess's wishes, can I?” The words came through a joking smile that made Clarke let out a sigh of a laugh. 

“I suppose not.”

He let the joke sit for a moment before continuing. “Does the Princess have any other wishes I can uphold?” 

She couldn’t help but grin until her eyes squinted. Clarke straightened her back to the royal degree and watched him down her nose. “Not at the moment, considerate sir, I do not. But thank you kindly.”

He shook his curls. Not exactly what one would do in a royal household, other than perhaps a shaggy stable boy. 

“Then the Princess must adhere to me when a want arises.”

With a nod, she replied, “Will do, considerate sir.”

He flashed a grin before closing the door.

Clarke was left feeling less tired than she usually was by her pathetic workout. She looked around the room, aiming to find nothing in particular. Her back was a damp mess of sweat between the heat of the summer and holding the books, who in which were still scattered on the floor. Clarke kneeled in front of them and collected them into one pile. She placed them in their usually on the dresser adjacent to the bed.

Wanting to fall back onto the mattress to just be in comfort, Clarke stalled herself. She was sweaty and sticky and she honestly didn’t want to lay in it. So she grabbed a medium hand towel from the bathing chambers, wetting one end to wash and dry. Octavia had assisted Clarke previously in how all of the improved water pump technology worked, and Clarke had found it quite easier than she imagined. She was still getting her grasp on all of it, but was able to use it without assistance. 

Her shirt was damp both with the water from the wet excess of the towel and her own body’s perspiring. She pulled it over her head, placing it in the basket of dirty clothes behind the bathroom door. She had been wearing that shirt for almost a day and a half now, if she was calculating correctly in her head. Octavia told Clarke to watch how many times she was changing herself, since any strong increase in laundry consumption would be raising a red flag to the patrols. It wasn’t that hard to follow given the fact that she was used to the occasional changes she would give herself in her prison; washing was a very tedious task, and she didn’t have much of an ample supply of water. 

She opened a drawer that Bellamy had told her he kept his undershirts in. She hadn’t taken upon his offer previous to now, but Clarke had yet to place another shirt she could wear, so she selected a soft gray - both in color and texture - to fashion and went through with her desire to crash onto the top of the bed.

The fabric acted as an amenity. The indifference of the comforter’s textile and the short was some oddity of a perfect combination. 

Clarke stared at the ceiling, allowing herself to imagine colorful swirls and tulips and skies. Her hand was quite near healed, and she was grateful for it - but Clarke knew getting back into artistry would be very difficult. 

For now, though, that wasn’t going to be what she focused on. Neither was reading. She had plenty of time with both in her sentence; but none for her gift. Time for that was taken away from her, and Clarke had decided to make up for it. A feeble amount, yes, but some than nothing was going to win over.

It wasn’t that she exactly had a choice, either. Octavia and Bellamy had risked everything to get her out, and are giving more to keep her here, all because they believe in common decency. Her mother didn’t even believe in the love of a child. And what she had been giving them in return was nothing but a cracked tile wall, bent silverware, and dominantly another mouth to split rations into.

_ How  _ she was supposed to build control, Clarke didn’t know. She didn’t have any breakouts before her imprisonment, besides the vase; it was the fear of one that ultimately was the reason of her shunning. Sure, she didn’t know how she would be able to use the powers then, but she had no reason to, either. At the moment at least.

If she were able to learn if her emotions were connected in any way, Clarke would probably had lived out her life with no problem. Anger was her downfall that day. If she had known her mental state never could go outside the even balance she had yet to stray, there would be something to work towards. 

It would only be one lesson with an enchantress, maybe, that would make her aware of these things. Enough so that she would know what it felt like when she was a wave tiding the waters until it crashed. 

She would’ve been titled a mysterious princess, given a cursed, unknown gift that she learned the ways of. But only enough that would allow her to stay dormant for the completion of her days. A bedtime story with an end that would teach good morals to feisty children.

Instead, she was raised as a volcano.

All these years she stayed dormant; forced to live emotionless, since no amount of pride or sadness ever arose. But now she was erupting. And Clarke didn’t know how to stop. There wasn't any reason to it. She just...all the sudden, everything was going crazy every since the door to her cell opened again.

The best place she figured to start was how to control her emotions. Looking back in the times of her accidents, she noted her state of mind was always off of her own plateau. Nervous, annoyed, angered, frightened... but Clarke had been at those points before, and nothing came of it. 

There wasn't any other place other than that, though.

Clarke ran through memories in her head, thinking and sorting events into columns of times of pride, acrimony, melancholy... and rolled over to her stomach. She perched on her elbows and hovered her right palm over the loose blanket atop to bed.

In her mind, a moment of her childhood passed - violet flowers fluttering out of her window sill by the maid's hand, scolding her for bringing weeds into her bedchambers. Exasperation flooded in the path it left behind.

Clarke slowly pinched her fingers as she raised her hand above the blanket, feeling as straight cyclone forming between the too seeable matters. With a grimace, but not with physical touch, Clarke opened her hand to give it the slightest push downwards. The spot of the blanket under her hand's push flattened like a gust of wind blew into it, taking all of its wrinkles. A faint print of a hand was left as well, given by the invisible force. 

She gave herself a smile at her success. She was able to have some sort of control, shed could now see. All she needed to work up to was -

There was a vicious pounding on the door. Not hers - Bellamy’s - door, but one beyond it. a loud voice shouted through it, followed by another hard set of knocking.

If that in itself didn't startle Clarke off the bed, Bellamy swinging the door open certainly did. The blur of him was over to her in a fraction of a second, hooking his arms under hers and pushing her to the closet. 

"It’s patrol," Bellamy told her, pushing her shoulders down until Clarke lay upon a heap of loose clothing strew upon the floor of it. She looked at him through confused eyes. He didn’t pay mind to her, only kept one hand on her shoulder closest to him as he threw clothes on her.

"What? What do mean?"

“Surprise inspection. They aren't supposed to have one for another month or so, but i guess with the breach -"   
"P-N-A-C-P! Open up!" the voice bellowed. It made Clarke cold in the closet overcome by summer heat.   
Bellamy replied over his shoulder, "One second!" before turning back to Clarke, who was now several times more terrified than before the command.    
"What breach?"   
He met her eyes as they both started to cover her. "You."  
She was left to deal with the realization alone. Bellamy stood, pulling one shirt off the hanger that hung above her head to cover the final part of her. She jerked her head enough for one eye to see him leave her. Bellamy hurried into his bathroom. He grabbed a towel and turned the water pump until it flowed instantly. The patrol pounded again, threatening to break in if he did not open up in ten seconds.  
"I'm naked!" Bellamy replied, sticking his head under the running water. Clarke was instantly confused by what he was saying. He was very well decent -   
As if he read her mind, Bellamy pulled his pants down.   
Luckily, men continued to wear undergarments in this age. But her eyes went wide and it was startling nonetheless.   
Bellamy removed his head from the faucet, shaking his wet hair so water droplets flew among the tiles. He pulled the curtain guarding the bath aside and wrapped the towel he grabbed around his hip bones as he made his way over to Clarke once more.  
"You're not afraid, Clarke," he assured her quickly. "Tell yourself that. Now close your eyes and don't make a sound."  
He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on her face before she could say anything, or even steal a glance. She smelled only him, saw only black, and felt nothing but boiling terror being cooled with his affirmation. The only sense she had left was sound.   
The sound of a door opening in the midsts of an interrupted knock.  
"I'm not afraid," Clarke let herself whisper.   
"Sorry," Bellamy told the people behind the commands. "I was showering, and my sister forgetting her keycard isn't far from your little show. Come in."  
"Understandable." a voice replied. Deeper than Bellamy's, if it was possible. "Just want to look around is all. Regular checkup."  
"Seems like the occasional regular checkup is becoming more frequent. Are we expected to adapt to this scheduling permanently?" Through their voices and pauses, the footsteps of heavy feet seemed to vibrate the floor all the way to where Clarke laid, instantly trying to calm her breathing. In the smallest movement of her lips, she mouthed to herself; _I'm not afraid I'm not afraid I'm not afraid._  
"Just until a situation is dealt with."  
"Situation? That's not exactly a second or third I’ve heard around here. Usually this complex is pretty tight with control. Should we be worried?"  
"Not exactly, it's more of an...internal affair. Just do what we advise and report any abnormalities." There was a creak as a door opened, and for several minutes, Clarke couldn't hear anything above murmurs or common words. But then the footsteps leveled with her head, and Clarke knew this room was next.   
At first, the footsteps followed themselves to the opposite end of the room. The window. nevertheless, Clarke squeezed her eyes shut. Some wood creaked against weight, and Clarke could picture Bellamy leaning on his dresser. The window curtains' rings squeaked against their railing.  
"Quite a thick layer of dust in between these. Don't like to see the sky often?"   
With something as idiotic as that, Clarke was sure their cover was blown. There was no good excuse why they have kept all of the curtains closed. The only explanation to that was obvious; They were hiding something behind them.  
"The dark skin is hereditary. I'm kind of a vampire." There was a pause.   
"And your sister?"  
Bellamy's answer was quick and casual. "She would rather be outside than look at it."  
"Must be why her room looks untouched."  
"Quite the extrovert. But the neatness is on me."   
Any occasional breath Clarke allowed herself called to cease abruptly as the brush of the shoes against the carpet got proximate. And then - an odd feeling - the weight of air around her ribs seemed to increase in burden as the pressure pushed down, almost like a feather having enough strength to make a crater in the heaps of closes if it put on enough pressure.   
The anomaly of the perception was halted when the smallest breeze - not quite cool but chiller than the heat that had since gathered under the clothing - swept across Clarkes back. She had never experienced such shivers than right then, when she had to conceal it in all her skin and bones could muster. Because she knew exactly what just happened. The guard had toed off the balled up clothing until he hit the last layer of it; The soft gray shirt Clarke was wearing herself.

They were going to find her. Clarke was going to be found, and taken by them, back to that... place with the bright lights and walls and machines that had too much information on them. She would be a prisoner, once again. Of an unknown place, filled with unknown people wanting to do unknown things...

Somehow, it sounded worse than the cell she was in for seven thousand years. Although she knew that would never be true.

"You have a fair amount of unhung shirts for a neat person." Clarke had never stayed so still in her life. 

"Octavia is the laundry sibling. I suck at hanging things and have since given up."

"Should probably fold them, then. Can’t imagine how wrinkled these will all get."

"Will do, sir."

Whatever pressure the air was suffocating Clarke with... it released its hold as footsteps marked the presence away. She still allowed her lungs to burn. 

"That’s all?" The guards voice echoed in the bathroom. 

"All of the rooms, yes." 

"Then we will be on our way." Bellamy replied with a simple "Sounds good."

Clarke listened for the bedroom door to close as the foot falls carried them out of the room. It didn't.

"I expect you to answer immediately next time," The guard told Bellamy, perhaps as a way of farewell.

"Well you know the cost of water damage with carpets, sir," he replied easily. "Id rather dry off than risk it."

The front door clicked.

It wasn't until she heard Bellamy's quick steps that she let herself breathe a sharp, painful gulp of hot air. 

"Clarke," She heard him say. Clarke didn't move from her frozen state. 

A cooler draft swept past her nose and fluttered against her eyelashes that line her tightly sealed eyelids. Bellamy swept a piece of her hair that was stuck to her wet cheeks, tickling her lips, and only then did she open her eyes.

The shirt that was over her head was now replaced on Bellamy’s torso. That didn’t stop her from looking him up and down with nothing moving but her eyes. 

"Are they gone?" She asked softly. 

"They’re gone." Another sigh of relief from her. "Are you okay?" 

She ignored his question, sweeping her hair back. "How did he not see me?"

"I've never been so grateful that you are as malnourished as you are. My shirt is a blanket on you." 

She smiled as they both starting picking off the clothes. It disappeared quickly with a thought. 

"What would've happened if I was found?"

Bellamy took time to think about it, picking off the last of clothes in a small daze. It occurred to her that he probably knew exactly what would happen since he was in training himself. He was just deciding whether to tell Clarke. 

"Since it would be my second offense in the crime, I’d probably be imprisoned for life. Not before answering questions, though." The thought of Octavia living through what she just went through normally distorted Clarke in ways that made her uncomfortable. She knew Bellamy was being easy with her. For not only taking her from that white place but guarding a danger to their community... Bellamy would be executed. So would Octavia. No matter what the world was like now. "With you, they would probably pretend like it never happened. Or use it as an advantage and compare whatever information they had on you before to what you are like after months in the present day world."

Clarke answered with a simple nod. 

"It wasn't like that with Octavia. Just so you know," Bellamy stated, helping her up. He left quickly to retrieve his pants from the bathroom. "There was a compartment we found within the kitchen tiles. We lived in the crappy part of the community so I guess it was some sort of bunker that was never finished. They never found her there. Probably don't know it exists to this day."

“How  _ did _ they find her?” She sat on the edge of the bed and watched him. Bellamy looked into the bathroom mirror and ran a hand through his hair, which was starting to dry. 

“That’s a story for another day. Let's just be happy it wasn’t you today.”

**Author's Note:**

> please leave comments/advice/reviews! I really appreciate it!


End file.
